Chapter: 4 Workmens Compensation Act, 1923

Workmens Compensation Act, 1923

Introduction

This is a central Act. It provides for the compensation to be paid to the workers, for personal injury, including death, suffered by them on account of accidents arising out of and in the course of employment.

Only the persons enlisted in schedule II of the Act are eligible for the compensation. A pecular meaning is attributed to the term compensation under the Act as it becomes payable not because of a tort or wrong doing by the employer. The employer's liability under the Act has in fact no connection with any wrong doing by him. The general principle is that a workman who suffers injury in the course of and out of his employment is entitled for compensation, in case of his accidental death in the course of his employment his dependents should be compensated.

The growing complexity of industry in this country, with the increasing use of machinery and consequent danger to workmen along with the comparative poverty of the workmen themselves, renders it advisable that they should be protected, as possible, from hardship arising from accidents.
The general principle is that compensation should ordinarily be given to workmen who sustained personal injuries by accidents arising out of and in the course of their employment, compensation will also be given in certain limited circumstances for diseases. Provision has been made for special Tribunals to deal cheaply and expeditiously with any disputes that may arise, and generally to assist the parties in the manner which is not possible for the civil Court. This Act is a quasi penal statute and it must not be interpreted with sympathetic leniency but must be construed strictly.