EMPEROR Vs. MANILAL BHOGILAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The accused, who is the agent and an occupier of the Silk and Cotton Manufacturing Company, Limited, Ahmedabad, was charged with and tried for an offence under Section 15(1) (c) of the Indian Factories Act, in that he allowed two boys both aged under fourteen to work in the mill unregistered.

(2.) The learned Magistrate has acquitted the accused principally on the ground that the work which the boys were employed to do was not an integral part of the ordinary mill operations, and that the boys had been employed not by the accused but by an independent contractor, and that therefore the accused was not responsible for their employment.

(3.) Upon a careful consideration of the provisions of the Indian Factories Act, XV of 1881, I think that the grounds upon which the Magistrate has proceeded cannot be supported. It appears to me that the provisions in question throw upon the occupier the responsibility as regards the employment of boys under fourteen unregistered, and that prima facie it was the duty of the occupier to see that such boys were not employed in the factory unregistered. A person cannot get rid of his liability for the performance of a duty imposed upon him by law by delegating it to another person. As observed by Lord Blackburn in Dalton V/s. Angus (1881) 6 App. Cas. 749: "a person causing something to be done, the doing of which costs on him a duty, cannot escape from the responsibility, attaching on him, of seeing that duty performed, by delegating it to a contractor.