Employee’s Compensation Act, 1923
Section 3—Claim petition—Commissioner for Workmen’s Compensation rejected the application on ground of delay as well as on merits—High Court upheld the order passed by Commissioner—Appeal—Relationship of employer and employee has not been proved before the Commissioner—Basic requirement for claiming compensation not fulfilled—Case set up by the appellants themselves was that they had not claimed any compensation against the owner of vehicle, who is alleged to be employer, while filing application before the Motor Accident Claim Tribunal—Appellants wished to claim compensation under the Employee’s Compensation Act—Once that was so, this fact being in their knowledge from the very beginning, delay of 9 years in filing application under the 1923 Act, is certainly fatal for consideration of the claim by the appellants for award of compensation—Application before the Commissioner was filed only after the proceedings in the MACT were concluded and appellants were not able to get any compensation in execution—No sufficient cause is established for condonation of delay in filing the application—Appeal dismissed.
[Paras 13 to 18]