HASINA BIBI Vs. GULAB ANSARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case is a little out of the ordinary in that there is no dispute between the claimant for compensation and the employer. The dispute is between the widow of the deceased workman and the relations of her husband as to whether the widow alone is entitled to the whole of the compensation money or whether her husband's relations are also entitled to share it with her. The learned Commissioner has distributed the amount deposited by the employer between all the contending parties. The widow feels aggrieved and has appealed.

(2.) The workman concerned was one Mohammad Makbul who was employed as a boatman under the Garden Reach Workshops Limited on monthly wages of Rs. 50 to Rs. 60. On the 19th of July, 1955, while working on a boat, he accidentally fell down into the river and was drowned. Rather unusually for an employer, the Garden Reach Workshops Limited at once accepted liability for compensation and by a letter, dated the 27th of September, 1955, sent to the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation a cheque for Rs. 1,740 in full payment of the compensation claimable in law for the workman's death. The total amount of the compensation payable on the basis of the monthly wages of the deceased workman would be Rs. 1,800, but it appears that the employers had already paid the widow a sum of Rs. 60 and, therefore, they deposited with the Commissioner the balance of Rs. 1,740. That deposit made, they did not wish to remain concerned with the matter any further and stated in their letter to the Commissioner that they had no desire to be made parties to any proceedings for the distribution of the compensation if and when such proceedings were instituted. The deposit was accepted by the Commissioner by an order, dated the 4th of October, 1955. Under Section 8(3) of the Workmen's Compensation Act, receipt of the money by him would operate as sufficient discharge of the employers in respect of the compensation payable by them.

(3.) On the 14th of October, 1955, the Appellant before us, who is widow of the deceased workman, made an application in what has been called form G. for the payment of the entire amount of the compensation to herself. Form G.1, we are informed, is not one of the forms prescribed by the rules framed under the Act, but has come to be in use in the Court of the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation in distribution cases. Not much care appears to have been taken to adjust the form to the prayer which the widow really intended to make because the words in para. 4 of the form, namely, "that the amount *** deposited *** as compensation *** be distributed amongst the abovenamed applicants in accordance with law" were left untouched. It is, however, sufficiently clear from the rest of the application that what the widow really wanted was that the entire amount of the compensation deposited by the employers should be paid out to her.