KHAJABI CHANDKHAN PATHAN Vs. GULABKHAN JAMALKHAN PATHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE above First Appeal filed under Section 30 of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 raises an important question of law as to whether, having held the respondent No. 1 employer liable for the compensation under that Act, in respect of the accident to a motor vehicle viz. auto -riksha, as a result of which Chandkhan the workman died on June 14, 1975, the learned Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation Act, Poona was right in dismissing the claim against the New India Assurance Co. Ltd., respondent No. 2.

(2.) THE learned Commissioner appears to have taken the view that notwithstanding the decision of the division Bench of the Gujarat High Court in Northern India Motors Ins. Co. v. Magan Shanjit Solanki : [1974] A.C.J. 55 wherein with respect, the learned Judges of the Gujarat High Court had very carefully and fully considered all the relevant provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act and the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 and Sections 95 and 96 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 along with Section 110'B) and rightly held after discussing all the case laws which were cited before them and came to the conclusion that the Commissioner under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 had exclusive jurisdiction to decide the liability of the insurer in a claim in respect of a motor vehicle made under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923.

(3.) IT is necessary in this connection to notice all the relevant provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 one of which is Section 95(1), which reads as under: