TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1981 (5) TMI 136
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.... order to do so. The claim of the dependents of the deceased who instituted an application under Section 77 of the Act for appropriate benefits as provided in Section 46 of the Act having been rejected by the Employees' Insurance Court, Ahmedabad, by the decision rendered by the Presiding Judge of the Court concerned on May, 28, 1978 and an appeal preferred to this Court under Section 82 of the Act having been dismissed by a learned Single Judge by his judgment dated June 19, 1980 in First Appeal No. 571 of 1979, the aggrieved dependents have approached this Court by way of present appeal under Clause 15 of She Letters Patent. Following questions arise for our determination: 1. Whether a personal injury (to which he ultimately succumbed)was caused to the employee concerned by the accident? 2. Whether the said accident arose in the course of his employment; 3. Whether the said accident arose out of his employment. 2. The deceased was employed as a jobber in the Aruna Mills Company Limited. He was engaged in the Wrapping Department. And he was an insured person under the Act. These facts are not in dispute. The only facts which require to be scrutini....
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.... that the employee concerned had died on account of the accident which occurred "in the course of and out of his employment" so as to fall within the orbit of the expression "employment injury" contained in Section 2(8) of the Act. The learned Single Judge confirmed the decision of the E.S.I. Court mainly on the ground that the employee concerned had sustained the said injury on a public road while he was waiting at the bus stop in order to board a public transport vehicle and that under the circumstances, it cannot be said even by recourse to the theory of notional extension that the employee concerned had died "in the course" of the employment. Reliance was placed on the decision in S.S. Mfg. Co. v. Bai Valu Raja (1958) IILLJ 249 SC in support of the view that the workman who sustained injury in the course of the accident when he was on the way to the place of work, cannot be said to have sustained the injury "in the course" of his employment. The learned Single Judge distinguished the decision of a Division Bench of this High Court in Dudhiben Dharamshi and Ors. v. New Jehangir Vakil Mills Ltd., wherein the view was taken that an accident which arose at a point of time when the ....
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.... notional extension of the employer's premises so as to include an area which the workman passes and repasses in going to and in leaving the actual place of work. There may be some reasonable extension in both time and place and a workman may be regarded as in the course of his employment even though he had not reached or had left his employer's premises. The facts and circumstances of each case will have to be examined very carefully in order to determine whether the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment of a workman, keeping in view at all times this theory of notional extension. 5. Following propositions emerge from the law declared by the Supreme Court in the aforesaid passage: namely, (i) as a rule employment of a workman does not commence until he has reached the place of employment and does not continue when he has left the place of employment; (ii) Notwithstanding the aforesaid rule, it is now well-settled position in law that the said proposition (i) is subject to a rider, namely that it is subject to the theory of notional extension of the employers' premises so as to include an area which the workman passes and repasses in going to and ....
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....the accident occurred just outside the premises. But the rule broadly laid down by the Supreme Court in S.S. Mfg. Co.'s case from which the aforesaid propositions have been culled out, cannot be restricted by the Courts by adding a rider unrelated to the fact situation obtaining in each individual case which comes before, the Court. To do so, would be to add a rider to the law laid down by the Supreme Court which it may not be open to the Court to do. It is in this perspective that the incidental observations made by the Supreme Court in paragraph 8 of the S.S. Mfg. Co's case have to be understood, and interpreted. No doubt in paragraph 8 it has incidentally been observed that the workman is not in the course of his employment from the moment he leaves his home and is on his way to his work. But this observation cannot be read in isolation and in disregard of the law clearly stated in paragraph 7 of the judgment from which the relevant propositions have been extracted a short while ago. So also, it must be realised that immediately after this observation, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the position of law stated earlier and has clarified that a workman certainly is in the....
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....vision for certain other matters in relation thereto, and as it is considered expedient to provide for certain benefits to employees in case of sickness, maternity and employment injury etc. Be it also realised that an insured person himself has to make contribution along with the employer who is obliged to make contribution, in order to enable the scheme to function It is in the light of this benevolent legislation enacted for the purpose of protecting a workman who sustains employment injury-a workman who has himself been made to make contribution from his meagre earnings towards the costs of running the scheme that notional extension theory has to be applied. There are some more weighty and substantial considerations which must be taken into account in applying the notional extension theory articulated by the Supreme Court. The importance of Section 51-A which enacts a presumption as to the accident arising in course of employment cannot be overemphasized. The said provision in terms provides that for the purposes of the Act, an accident arising in the course of an insured person's employment shall be presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, also to have arisen ....
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.... was on his way to or on his way back from the place of work, In view of Section 51-A a liberal approach is required to be made in regard to cases which do not fall within Section 51-C but to which notional extension theory requires to be applied having regard to the law laid down in S.S. Mfg. Co's case (supra) in the fact situation of each case. And if such a liberal approach is made, the notional extension theory can be so applied as to cover the place where the workman concerned was actually waiting in order to proceed directly to his place of work. From the bus stop the mechanised transport vehicle would have carried him to the place of work in a few minutes. The question of distance, therefore, in a way becomes immaterial. Whether he was standing just outside the gate from which he could have made entry by just walking into the factory or he was standing at the bus stop from where he was able to board a bus which could have taken him at the factory gate within a space of a few minutes should make no difference. In so far as the facts of the present case are concerned, indubitably the employee concerned was standing at the bus stop and was waiting to catch the bus. Instead ....
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.... contributes towards the costs of running of the scheme evolved with a benevolent eye in order to appease the social conscience. We are, therefore, of the opinion that the accident had occurred in the course of employment. 6. This brings us immediately to the next question. Did the accident arise 'out of employment? In other words, in order to answer this question, we will have to examine whether nexus has been established between the cause of the accident and nature of his employment. Ii needs no argument to hold that the work of a jobber in a mill is a strenuous work which results in physical strain, and stress. The evidence clearly shows that he was actually working for the employer on December 22, 1974 at the factory premises when he had a feeling of giddiness, his head began to reel, and he became unwell. Medical evidence goes to show that he died because of acute cardiac failure. Evidence of witness No. 2 for the applicant, D. N. Pathek, practising as a Vaidya for 45 years, goes to show that the employee concerned was unwell and he was being treated by him since four days before the date of the occurrence. Treatment was being given for bronchitis and asthma and his con....