ABDUL MEAH Vs. BIRD AND CO. LTD.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant whose claim for compensation has been dismissed by the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation was employed under the respondents, Bird and Co., Ltd., as a spinning shifter and suffered an injury in his right arm as the arm got entangled in a spinning frame when it was in motion. The case made by him in his application for compensation was vague to a degree and all that was said was that he had met with the accident when he was on duty. That bare case was subsequently developed in the course of the evidence into a case of an accident suffered while the appellant was cleaning the machine, although it was in motion, which it was one of his duties to do. The respondent -company admitted that the appellant was a workman under them and also admitted that he had suffered the injury in his right arm by reason of the arm having got entangled in a spinning frame. What they contended by way of setting up a plea in bar was that the accident had not arisen out of and in the course of the appellant's employment, because (a) it was not one of the duties of his employment to clean spinning frames while they were in motion and (b) that in actual fact he had arrived at the mill some time before the hour when the mill usually starts and had put his hand inside the slack pulley in order to steal oil by means of some cotton waste, but before he had finished the operation, the mill had started and his arm had got jammed by the machine.

(2.) THE only witness which the appellant examined was himself. He named two fellow -workmen, but those two were examined by the respondent -company. A third witness examined on behalf of the respondent -company was an assistant of the spinning department.

(3.) THE learned Commissioner has accepted the case of the respondent -company in toto. He has held that it was not the duty of the appellant to clean the spinning frames while in motion and further that the accident had occurred to him in the manner alleged by the respondents. In that view, he necessarily held that the injury in the right arm had not been caused to the appellant by an accident arising out of or in the course of his employment and that consequently he was not entitled to any compensation. In arriving at that conclusion the learned Commissioner appears to have been very largely Influenced by the accident report submitted by the respondent -company to the various authorities prescribed by law.