JUDGMENT
Chatterjee, J.
1. This Misc. appeal is directed against the judgment and order dt. 27-2-76 passed by Sri Sital Prasad Chatterjee, the Ad hoc Claims, Commissioner, Sealdah in Mis. Judicial Claim Case No. 68 of 1975 whereby the Claim Case preferred by Smt. Sujata Sana, the wife of the victim Janardan Saha for compensation of Rs. 50.000/- had been allowed as against the main respondent the Eastern Railway Administration. The facts of the case in so far those are relevant for our purpose may briefly be summed up as follows :
2. On 29-1-75 the victim Janardan Saha, a Reserve Bank Employee was coming back to his residence at Birhati by a passenger train and in course of his journey, the train met with an accident at Ultadanga road causing the death of Janardan. His wife Sujata Saha one of the respondents filed an application claiming compensation of Rs. 50,000/- Under Section 82-C of the Railways Act, 1890. This application was filed in April 1975. On 28-8-75. Sujata’s father-in-law Personath Saha filed a separate application for himself claiming his own share of the compensation as also one share for his wife Charulala, O.P.W. 7 and also another share for his minor young unmarried daughter on the ground that they were “solely dependent” upon the earning of the victim. The learned Claims Commissioner rejected Personath’s claim on two counts. The Claims Commissioner held that Personath’s claim was already time barred. And the Claim Commissioner rejected Personath’s claim on merits as well holding inter alia that Personath, his wife and daughter were never solely or partly dependent on the earnings of the victim. Personath’s application was thus rejected. Being aggrieved thereby Personath has filed this Misc. appeal against the Eastern Railway Administration as also against Sujata.
3. Mr. Mukherjee, the learned Advocate appearing for Personath, the appellant, has frankly conceded before us that he has no grievance whatsoever against the Railway Administration. The Claims Commissioner, according to him, had rightly allowed compensation of Rs. 50,000/- on account of the unfortunate accident resulting in the death of his client’s son. According to Mr. Mukherjee that sum of Rs. 50,000/- should have been however apportioned amongst and shared by Personath, his wife and his unmarried daughter. The learned Claims Commissioner, according to him, erred in the matter of granting the total sum of Rs. 50,000/- in favour of Sujata alone.
4. We have heard Mr. Mukherjee in extenso. We could have been assisted better if the Railway Administration or Sujata had represented themselves before us. Unfortunately, we have heard the Misc. appeal ex parte. None appeared on behalf of the Eastern Railway Administration nor on behalf of Sujata.
5. Mr. Mukherjee has first of all invited our attention to Section 82C of the Railways Act which states inter alia that an application for compensation arising out of an accident may be made,– where death has resulted from the accident, by any dependent of the deceased. Section 82C in Sub-section (2) further enacts that no application for compensation shall be entertained unless it is made within three months of the occurrence of the accident, but the claims Commissioner may on good cause shown allow any application to be made at any time within one year of such occurrence. In the “explanation” portion of Section 82C it has been laid down that the word ‘dependent’ has the meaning assigned to it in Clause (d) of Section 2 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923. Now there is no trouble relating to Sujata’s application which was filed within three months of the accident in April, 1975. Personath’s application however was filed as late as on 28-8-75. This means and implies that Personath’s application was filed long eight months after the accident. Evidently, the learned Claims Commissioner was not satisfied with this late filing of the application and as such he denounced Personath’s application as time-barred.
6. Mr. Mukherjee has invited our attention to the case of Lngley v. Thomas Firth & Sons, reported in (1921) 1 KBD 655. Mr. Mukherjee has argued on the strength of the aforesaid decision that a proceeding can be maintained even after the expiry of the specified period. We have carefully perused the aforesaid decision relied upon by Mr. Mukherjee. In that reported case, it was held that the Claimant/ Appellant could not make out successfully a case of “reasonable cause” for her not having made the claim within the prescribed six months’ time. The Kings Bench Division therefore, dismissed the appeal. It is difficult to appreciate why Mr. Mukherjee has relied upon this decision which in our view rather supports the view adopted by the Claims Commissioner. Before the Claims Commissioner too Personath failed to establish a ‘reasonable cause’ for his delay. In his application for compensation dt. 28-8-75 he explained his delay at Para 6 (vide Paper Book, Page 17) by alleging inter alia “that he could not prefer any claim as the documents required for the purpose were taken away by Sujata Saha.” In evidence, during trial, he gave out an altogether different case by saying that he thought that his “daughter-in-law would apply on my behalf. Hence I was late in filing my application” vide Paper-Book, Page 49. The learned Claims Commissioner found by perusing Exhbt-1, the death certificate that Personath had identified his son before the authority concerned at the cremation ground. The Claims Commissioner was satisfied that Personath knew everything of the occurrence as it stood on 29-1-75. There was thus no sufficient reason for his filing the application long eight months thereafter. In our considered opinion, therefore, the learned Claims Commissioner was prefectly justified in denouncing the application dt. 28-8-75 as time-barred.
7. With regard to the merits of the case, the learned Claims Commissioner held that the parents of the victim and the sister of the victim were not at all dependent within the meaning of Section 2 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Claims Commissioner, therefore, dismissed Personath’s application for compensation. Mr. Mukherjee has drawn our attention to Section 2, Clause (d) of the Workmen’s Compensation Act which states inter alia that the word ‘dependent’ means and includes such relatives of the deceased, namely, a widower, a parent etc. provided they are dependent on the earnings of the victim at the time of his death. The learned Claims Commissioner relied upon the case of the Khulna Electric Supply Corporation Ltd. v. Bahadur Sardar, reported in (1938) 42 Cal WN 516 wherein it was held that “dependency Under Section 2(d) of the Compensation Act means “dependents at the time of death of the deceased workman”. So it is clear that both according to the statutory law as laid down in the Act itself as also according to the decision referred to above, it is required to be shown as to whether the applicants claiming compensation were dependent upon the victim a! the time of his death. Let us now analyse the facts and circumstances of the case to see whether the Claims Commissioner was justified in holding that Personath, his wife and daughter were not so dependent upon Janardhan.
8. In the application for compensation dt. 28-8-75, it was alleged at several places that Personath, his wife and daughter were “solely” dependents upon Janardhan so much so that they were “serving” since after the death of Janardhan. In his evidence, during trial however, Personath could only assert that they were partly dependent. To prove their dependency, Personath examined two daily passengers, Biswanath Bose and Pravakar Chakraborty who gave out that Janardhan disclosed to them that he used to help his father Personath occasionally. The learned Claims Commissioner did not put his credence upon these witnesses. The learned Claims Commissioner, in our opinioa was perfectly justified in doing so. For we find that these two witnesses were never intimate with Janardhan. As a matter of fact, we find from their deposition that they had come to know Janardhan only three months prior to his death. Evidently before such newly acquainted persons, it was not expected that Janardhan would,give out his family secret. Personath cited and examined two other witnesses, namely, Hemanta Ghosh, O.P.W. 4 and Sachindra Dutta, O.P.W. 5 who gave out that Janardhan used to make payment to the local grocery shop owner of Shantipur from whom Personath used to purchase household articles. The best evidence, namely, the account book of the shop however was not produced. The learned Claims Commissioner naturally disbelieved all these witnesses.
9. The learned Claims Commissioner found that Sujata and her husband had no sufficient income so as to help Personath, his wife and daughter as well. Sujata’s evidence shows that he used to get Rs. 700/- per month. Personath in his evidence did not dare to disclose that Janardhan had a higher income, Personath simply stated that he did not know what was the salary of his son. From Sujata we get that they used to live at a rented house at Birhati and also at Calcutta and they had to pay Rs. 80 per month on account of rent. The Claims Commissioner relied upon the rent receipts (Ext. 2). On this point, the Claims Commissioner found that Personath’s financial condition was sound. The evidence of a local student, Lokesh Saha, applicant’s witness No. 2 shows that Personath was the owner of seven weaving machines. He had his own house at Santipur where he lived separately with his wife and daughter and two other sons. The evidence of CharuLata. O.P.W. 7 shows that those two sons used to earn something and they used to contribute to the parents as well. From the evidence of Personath we get that from his Barisal property (East Pakistani he used to fetch Rs. 2000/- to 3000/- per month. And this he fetched from 1950 to 1974. His evidence further shows that his family expenses would amount to Rs. 600/- only per month. No wonder, therefore, that Personath would require not a single farthing from the victim on account of his family expenses. It is not surprising to find that after the death of his son he would go to Barisal and would hand over Rs. 4000/- to Sujata at Birhati. We have perused the evidence of Personath very carefully and we have no doubt in our mind that Personath’s financial condition was extremely well off. He was the Chairman of local Shantipur Co-operative Society.
10. The reason why Personath filed a separate application for compensation is not far to see. Janardhan survived only for 5 years after his marriage with Sujata. For all these years Janardhan was living with Sujgta, separately. This must have dissatisfied Personath. Charulala his wife was so dissatisfied that she did not even care to see Sujata’s posthumas child although several years elapsed after that grand-son’s birth (vide Charulata’s deposition).
11. Mr. Mukherjee has strongly pleaded for the case of Charulaia’s daughter saying that the poor unmarried daughter’s case ought to have been considered by the Claims Commissioner and in this connection herelied upon the case of Hatima Ibrahim v. Ishabat Abdul . On a careful perusal of this case law, we find that the observations made therein far from supporting Mr. Mukherjee rather help the case of absentee respondents. We are tempted to quote below one sentence from that decision thus “There is no provision in this group of Sections or any other part of the Railways Act which enables a dependent of the deceased to make an application for the benefit of himself and the other dependent of the deceased.” It is interesting to note in this connection that Charulata and her daughter did not file any separate application before the Claims Commissioner. Only one application for compensation was filed by Personath for himself claiming one share for himself, one for his wife Charulata and one for their unmarried daughter. Be that as it may, one thing is clear, namely, that Personath failed to make out any satisfactory claim case before the Claims Commissioner. His case was first of all beyond time. And secondly on merits as well the case did not stand a moment’s scrutiny and it was rightly found out by the Claims Commissioner that far from being “sole dependent” they were not dependent at all nor even partly on the poor earnings of the victim Janardhan. There is, thus, no merit in the present misc appeal. The claim case of personath was thus rightly dismissed by the Claims Commissioner.
12. The appeal, thus, stands dismissed. The judgment and order dt. 27-2-76 passed by the Ad hoc Claims Commissioner, Sealdah, thus stand confirmed. We make no order as to costs.
Chakravarty, J.
13. I agree.