IMPERIAL TOBACCO CO INDIA LTD Vs. SALONA BIBI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only point urged in this appeal against an award made by the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation is that there was no evidence before the Commissioner on which he could properly hold that the death of the workman concerned had been caused partly by disease and partly by the stress and strain entailed on him by a journey to his place of employment which he had to undertake, because he was required to do so by the conditions of his service. According to the appellants, who are the employers the journey had been undertaken voluntarily and, in any event, it had nothing to do with the death which was caused solely by disease and, therefore, there was no death by an accident arising out of and in the course of the workman's employment and indeed no accident at all.

(2.) Certain of the facts were admitted by the parties, but as to the crucial facts, they differed. It was admitted that the deceased person, one Mohammad Syed, was a workman under the appellantcompany, the Imperial Tobacco Company (India) Limited, and was employed as a sweeper or floorboy in their Packing Department. It was also admitted that Mohammad Syed died on 22-4-52 on the table of the appellant company's hospital, situated on the first floor of a building. As regards what had caused Byed's death and how he had come by it, the parties made different cases. The learned Commissioner has characterised the case made by the respondent, who claimed compensation on account of the death of her son, as full of untruths and he has characterised the case with which the company wanted to meet the claim as full of half truths. He had, therefore, to find the facts for himself and has done so.

(3.) The case made in the application for compensation was that Syed had previously been sick, but he went to his place of employment on 22-4-1952, in order to rejoin his duties. There, when going up to the dispensary of the employers' hospital, he stumbled on the staircase, suffered a fall and received injuries which subsequently proved fatal. That case was not adhered to in the course of the trial and the witnesses called for the applicant spoke of a different fall upon a different staircase. According to them, when Syed arrived at the company's premises on 22-4-1952, the doctor was net yet to be found & thereupon he took up a broomstick, placed it on a tin box, preparatory to starting the work for the day and went to the urinal. Upon his return from the urinal, he somehow slipped on the eastern staircase and it was there that he was found by certain of the witnesses in a prostrate condition. He was carried up to the dispensary ,where he died within a few minutes.