The Workmens Compensation Act, 1923.

An Act to provide for the payment by certain classes of employers to their workmen of compensation for injury by accident.

General Principle: Compensation should be given to workmen who sustain personal injuries by accidents arising out of and in the course of employment.

Important Objects: Easy and hassle free remedy to the injured workman or the dependants to claim. Civil Courts excluded. Technicalities followed in the Court avoided. Methods of calculation for each injury mentioned in the Act itself The fee payable while instituting the claim petition not ad valorem but minimal.

Dependants: Category I: Widow, minor legitimate sons, unmarried legitimate daughter, widowed mother.

These claimants are given priority and need not prove that they were actually dependant on the income of the deceased.

Category II: Son/daughter who have attained the age of 18 years or more. They have to establish: a) relationship deceased. b) they are suffering from inability to earn the between them and the

and that they were wholly dependant on income of the dependant.

Category III: The list in this category is larger than the earlier ones but has lesser priority and they shall have to prove that they were totally depending on the deceased for their livelihood.

Disability:
Death. Total temporary disability. Total permanent disability. Partial temporary disability. Partial permanent disability.

Disability: It is not as much the physical disability as much as the reduction of the earning capacity because of the accident.

Partial disablement of a temporary nature reduces the earning capacity in any employment in which he was engaged at the time of accident.

Permanent

disablement

of

permanent

nature

reduces earning capacity in every employment which he was capable of undertaking at the time of accident.

Makasaheb V/s. Mohanlal Shah What is relevant to award compensation is not the loss of reduction in earnings but only the loss or reduction in the earning capacity. Incapacitation of a workman to work do not have reference to the physical incapacity but his ability to earn

Arising Out of Employment & in the Course of employment: AOE: there exists a casual connection between employment and injury i.e cause of injury directly relates to the employment. COE: there exists a circumstantial connection

between the accident and the employment i.e the connection may not be direct.

Arising out of COE. During the course of employment injury has

resulted from some risk incidental to the duties of the service which, unless engaged in the said duty, the workman would not have otherwise suffered. Thus

injury resulting from an accident must have sufficient nexus with the employment

Three tests for the COE: Workman was in fact employed on duty at the time of accident. Accident occurred at the place of performance duty. that the immediate act which lead to the Accident is not so remote from the requirement of his duties. of

Criteria for grant of Compensation: Worker. Accident. Personal Injury. COE.

Employer not liable: If the total or partial disablement as a result injury does not exceed three days. of

If the accident is directly attributable to the influence of an alcoholic agent or drugs and if the injury does not result in death or permanent total disablement.

If death is caused due to willful disobedience of workman of an order expressly given.

If the workman has instituted a civil suit

for

damages against the employer for the injury caused to him. If the workman refuses to submit himself for medical examination or obstructs the same, the right to compensation stands suspended during the period of refusal . Doctrine of Notional Extension: AS a rule, the 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, the journey to and from the place of employment being excluded. It is now well-settled, however, that this is subject to the theory of 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.

Latest Amendment to the Workmens Compensation Act.

Renaming the Workmens Compensation Act, 1923 as the Employees Compensation Act to make it gender sensitive. Raising the compensation paid to the workers and their family members in case of death to Rs. 1.2 lakh from current Rs. 80,000. Raising the compensation for permanent disability to Rs. 1.4 lakh from present Rs. 90,000. Also the funeral expenses were proposed to be raised to Rs. 5,000 from Rs. 2,500.