GLASGOW PRINTING COMPANY LTD. Vs. `PEARY MOHAN SANTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MR . Sanyal appearing on behalf of the employers has urged only one short point in this appeal and that point is a point of limitation. The respondent, who was employed under the appellants in the capacity of a linotype operator, claimed compensation on the ground that he had contracted the occupational disease of lead -poisoning by reason of his peculiar employment. He admitted having felt some pain in 1949 and again in 1951 and also having had to absent himself for a few days in those two years. In 1951 he was absent on 1 May and also on 2 May but when he went to the press on 3 May, he was told by the manager that he was unfit for work and could not be allowed to join. I need not do anything more than refer in passing to the case of the appellants that the respondent had been, in reality, dismissed because of misconduct, inasmuch as he had been detected stealing bars of lead for use in a business which he had started in his own account.

(2.) THE application for compensation was made on 23 November 1951. It was contended that by reason of the first proviso to Section 10(1) of the Act time must be deemed to have started running in favour of the appellants in 1949 or in 1950 and that, in either case, the application was barred by limitation. The learned Commissioner has repelled that contention on the ground that it had not been proved that either in 1949 or in 1950 the respondent had been suffering from lead -poisoning and that it was in May 1951 that he was for the first time compelled to absent himself from duty continuously on account of lead -poisoning and that was on 1 and 2 May. On that basis, the learned Commissioner has held that the respondent had been absent from work in consequence of the disablement caused by the disease on 1 May 1951, for the first time and if that was the starting point of limitation, the application was dearly within time.

(3.) I agree.