HIGH COURT OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR AT JAMMU CIMA No. 51 of 2007 Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. Petiotioner Jyoti Devi & Ors. Respondent !Mr. Amrit Sareen, Advocate. ^Mr. Rajesh Kumar, Advocate. MR. JUSTICE J.P.SINGH, JUDGE Date : 26/12/2008 : J U D G M E N T :
The Oriental Insurance Company Limited has filed this appeal
questioning Commissioner Workmen’s Compensation Act (Assistant
Labour Commissioner), Jammu’s award of January 23, 2007 directing
the appellant to pay an amount of Rs.3,94,120/- to the respondentsclaimants,
as compensation for the death of Ram Kumar alias Garu
Ram, who had been employed as driver by Rahul Gupta, respondent
no.5.
Appellant’s learned counsel, Mr. Amrit Sareen submitted that
the findings recorded by the learned Commissioner that Ram Kumar
had died during the course of his employment as driver with Rahul
Gupta, respondent, was perverse, in that, there was no evidence on
records to support the finding. His further submission is that the
Insurance Company was not liable to compensate the claimants
because the deceased did not have a valid driving licence at the time
when he was driving the insured Car.
Mr. Rajesh Kumar appearing for the claimants, on the other
hand, submitted that appellant’s appeal is not maintainable as no
substantial question of law arises therein. According to him
appreciation of evidence, which the appellant seeks in its appeal, may
not be permissible. Learned counsel submitted that the findings of the
Commissioner are based on evidence available on records and well
reasoned judgment of the Commissioner may not require interference
in appeal.
Responding to appellant’s plea that the deceased did not hold a
valid driving licence, learned counsel submitted that the Insurance
Company had failed to produce any evidence before the
Commissioner on the basis whereof it may be said that the deceased
did not possess a valid driving licence and in that view of the matter,
the findings recorded by the Commissioner cannot be faulted.
I have considered the submissions of learned counsel for the
parties and gone through the records of the Commissioner under
Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923.
It is a settled proposition of law that an appeal under Section 30
of the Workmen’s Compensation Act would be maintainable only if it
raises a substantial question of law. Substantial question of law as
contemplated by Section 30 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act
carries the same meaning as is ascribed to the expression “substantial
question of law” appearing in Section 100 of the Code of Civil
Procedure.
A question of law, or a substantial question of law, would arise
when the same is not dependent upon examination of evidence or on
any fresh investigation of facts. A question of law would, however,
arise when the finding is perverse, in that, it was either based on
legally impermissible evidence or on absolutely No evidence.
Appreciation of evidence afresh for taking a view other than the
one taken by the Commissioner may not however be permissible in an
appeal under Section 30 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act which
would lie only when a substantial question of law is found to arise in
the case.
In order to prove that the deceased had not died during the
course of his employment with respondent no.5, the appellant-
Insurance Company had produced Rahul Gupta, the person, who had
been stated by the claimants to have employed Ram Kumar who had
died during the course of his employment with Rahul Gupta. This
witness had categorically stated that Ram Kumar had died during the
course of his employment with him.
In this view of the matter, appellant’s learned counsel’s
submission that the statement of the owner had not been properly
appreciated by the Commissioner, may not merit consideration for
entertaining Insurance Company’s appeal, particularly when no other
evidence of any type whatsoever had been brought on records by the
appellant to disprove the claimant’s version that Ram Kumar had died
during the course of his employment with respondent no.5.
All that appellant’s learned counsel wants is the re-appreciation
of evidence which the Commissioner had considered while recording
his categoric finding that Ram Kumar had died during the course of
his employment with respondent no.5. This course, in my view, is
impermissible, as the appellant cannot wriggle out from the admission
that its witness Mr. Rahul Gupta had made during the course of his
statement acknowledging that Ram Kumar had been employed by him
as driver with his Car no. JK02N-9291.
Appellant’s counsel’s next submission that the driver of Car no.
JK02N-9291 did not hold valid driving licence, is not substantiated as
no evidence had been produced by the appellant before the Tribunal to
prove the case which it had set up in this behalf.
Findings returned by the Commissioner after appreciation of
evidence that the deceased had died during the course of his
employment with respondent no.1 cannot thus be interfered with in
the appeal.
Insurance Company’s appeal, which does not raise any
substantial question of law, is, accordingly, dismissed.
(J. P. Singh)
Judge
Jammu
26.12.2008
Pawan Chopra
