MT DIRJI Vs. SMTGOALIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question which has been referred to the Full Bench is whether a commissioner appointed under the Workmen's Compensation Act (who will for the sake of brevity be hereinafter referred to as the commissioner) is a Court.

(2.) The word "Court", as has been pointed out in Halsbury's Laws of England, originally meant the King's palace, but has also acquired the meaning of (1) a place where justice is administered and (2) the person or persons who administer justice. What we have to find is what are the essential attributes or characteristics of a Court when the expression is used in the latter sense. On this point we can get very little assistance from the definitions of "Court" which are to be found in the English statutes, though according to Stroud's Judicial Dictionary the expression has been defined in ho less than eighty Victoria statutes alone. In the Evidence Act, which is the only Indian statute in which the expression is intelligibly defined, it is stated that for the purpose of the Act "a Court includes all Judges and Magistrates and all persons, except arbitrators, legally authorised to take evidence."

(3.) This definition also is by no means exhaustive and as was pointed out in Queen Empress V/s. Tulju (88) 12 Bom. 36 it was framed only for the purpose of the Act itself and should not be extended beyond its legitimate scope. We have therefore to investigate the point for ourselves independently of the Evidence Act or any other Act.