ORDER
Judgement pronounced by D. Raju. J.
1. The above appeal has been filed under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent against the order of a learned single Judge of this Court dated 3.2.1997 in CMA No.1032 of 1995, wherein the learned single Judge, in the process of confirming the order of the Deputy Commissioner of Labour, Coimbatore, exercising the powers under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923, held that the accident in question had occurred 'arising out of and in the course of the employment'.
2. The appellant-claimant is a permanent worker in the appellant -Estate. On 5.9.1991 at about 7.50 a.m. when she left her child at the creche and was going for work near the Muster, one Muthiah, who is stated to be another worker of the appellant-Estate came from behind and assaulted her with a pruning knife on her left hand, as a consequence of which she sustained an injury on her left hand. The appellant - claimant was taken to the Government Hospital for treatment and thereafter W.C.No.29 of 1993 came to be filed under section 18(1) of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') claiming compensation on the ground that she sustained an injury, which entitled her for compensation under the Act. She claimed that she was paid Rs.778.44 per month and that she was 28 years of age at the time of accident. Per contra, the appellant- Management contested the claim contending that the injury sustained by the claimant was in no way connected with her employment, that the assault was made by the co-worker purely on the ground of some personal animosity and therefore, the injury caused did not arise out of and in the course of the employment and the compensation of Rs.25,400 is not payable to her. It was also contended that the claimant was 31 years of age and not 28 years of age.
3. On the above claims and counter claims, the claim petition was heard and oral evidence was let in on both sides and the respondent alone marked Exs.R-1 to R-3. On a consideration of the materials placed on record, the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation held that going to the workspot through a place where muster is taken attracts some form of casual relation with the performance of plucking tea leaves and in this case the appellant-claimant was assaulted by a co-worker and therefore, the injury suffered has to be held to be incidental to her employment and consequently, the incident must be taken to have arisen out of the employment of the workmen. So far as the quantum of compensation is concerned, taking into account the nature of injury as also the wages drawn, it was fixed at Rs.8,011.
4. Aggrieved, the appellant pursued the matter on appeal before this Court by filing CMA No.1032 of 1995, which, as noticed earlier, was dismissed confirming the order of the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation. Hence, the above appeal.
5. Mr. John Zachariah, learned counsel appearing for the appellant, while reiterating the stand taken before the learned single Judge and also by placing reliance upon the decisions in P.W.1 Co-operative Society Ltd. v. Smt. Ayyammai, 1994 (2) LLN. 1117 and E.S.I. Corporation v. France De Costa, 1996 2 LLN 895 strenuously contended that the injury in question cannot be said to have been caused to the claimant by any accident arising out of, and in the course of, the employment and therefore, the order of the learned single Judge as also that of the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation are contrary to law and could not be sustained. The learned counsel also submitted that the injury sustained in this case had no nexus with the work and the theory of notional extension will have no application to the case on hand. It was further argued that so long as the injury was not sustained in the course of discharge of her duties and as such the injury had not even any casual connection with the job of the claimant, merely from the fact that the person who caused the injury happened to be a co-worker of the same employer, or that it happened within the estate, the provisions of section 3 of the Act cannot be held to be attracted. The respondent, inspite of service of notice of appeal, has not chosen to enter appearance to project her claims.
6. The decision in P.A.P.W.I Co-operative Society's case, 1994 2 LLN 1114, which is that of a Division Bench of this Court, dealt with a case wherein a lady worker while attending to her work in a co-operative society, where she was employed, her husband entered the premises of the Society and asked her to accompany him and when she started beating her husband, the husband retaliated by stabbing her to death. The learned Judges of the Division Bench held after noticing the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case that the worker and her husband used to quarrel often, that the death was not only due to the quarrels between the victim and her husband as also the husband's animosity against the wife, but on account of the initial beating of the husband by the wife, which provoked her husband to stab her and consequently, it is not difficult to hold that the peril was brought about by the employee herself that added or extended the peril and it was purely personalto the employee and not a general peril. The learned Judges of the Division Bench also observed on the facts of that case that the occurrence could not be held to have any relation with the workmen's employment or that it was due to a risk incidental to the employment as distinguished from a risk to which all members of the public were alike exposed.
6. In Francis De Costa's, 1996 (2) LLN 865, the Apex Court dealt with a case arising under the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 and in that process was called upon to deal with the scope of section 2(8) of the said Act, which defined 'employment injury'. In elaborating the meaning of 'employment injury', Their Lordships of the Apex Court dealt with the ambit of 'personal injury' in contrast to 'employment injury' and taking into account the definition which envisaged a personal injury of an employee becoming employment injury when caused by an accident or an occupational disease 'arising out of and in the course of his employment', it was held that an employee could succeed under the provisions of the said Act only if it is proved that the injury the worker suffered arose out of or in the course of his employment. Emphasizing the position that both the conditions will have to be fulfilled before the benefit secured under the Employees State Insurance Act could be claimed by a worker, it was also observed that the Legislature for the purpose of the said Act, gave a restrictive meaning to 'employment injury.' To make a personal injury to fall within the scope of the definition of 'employment injury', it must be proved to have been attributed to an accident or occupational disease arising out of his employment, laying strong emphasis on the words 'out of', in that, in the context of the Act to mean 'caused by employment' indicating at the same time the other aspects of the meaning as well. On facts that was a case wherein the worker concerned met with an accident while he was on his way to his place of employment. The accident occurred at a place which was about 1 km. away from the factory. It was also observed therein that unless the employee can establish that the injury was caused or had its origin in the employment, a worker cannot succeed in a claim based on section 2(8) of the Employees State Insurance Act and that the definition in the said Act indicated that any accident which occurred while going to the place of employment or for the purpose of employment cannot be said to have arisen out of his employment, for the reason that there was no casual connection between the accident and the employment. Except for the similarity in the phrasoalogy in the definition clause in section 2(8) of the Employees State Insurance Act and section 3(1) of the (Workmen's Compensation Act), we find that there is vast difference between the respective scope as also the object of the two legislations, for the reason that in respect of the claims arising under the Workmen's Compensation Act, the words 'accidents arising out of and in the course of employment' appear to have been always construed liberally so as to achieve the object of the social welfare legislation by applying the principles and theory of notional extension. The decision of the Division Bench of this Court in the case of P.A.P.W.1 Co-operative Society, 1994 (2) LLN 1117, though arising under the Workmen's Compensation Act and in respect of certain general observations made therein by the learned Judges who constituted the Bench, the ultimate conclusions arrived at by them appear to have been very much due to the compelling factual circumstances of the case as found established rather than on a meticulous or overall consideration of the relevant principles to be applied in construing the scope of section 3(1). This would appear to be clear and our assumptions justified if a reference is made to the decision of the Apex Court in Rajanna v. Union of India, 1995 2 LLJ 824. That was a case wherein the interpretationof a circular of the Cabinet Secretariat of the Union Government was involved and Their Lordships of the Apex Court held that in order to construe the same, the principles enshrined in the Workmen's Compensation Act require to be taken into account and applied. In doing so, the Apex Court specifically noticed the decisions in Saurashtra Salt . v. Ibrahim Mahammed, 1970 1 LLJ 16 and strongly relied upon the principles laid down in those decisions to apply the concept of 'notional extension'. The Apex Court relied upon the following passage from the decision in the case of Saurashtra Salt Manufacturing Co., 1958 2 LLJ 249, which is as follows:
'As a rule, the employment of a workman does not commence until he has reached the place of the 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. The facts and circumstances of each case will have to be examined very carefully in order to determine whether the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment of a workmen, keeping in view at all times this theory of notional extension. .....It is well settled that when a workman is on a public road or apublic place or on a public transport he is there as any other member of the public and is not there in the course of his employment unless the very nature of his employment makes it necessary for him to be there. A workman is not in the course of his employment from the moment he leaves his home and is on his way to his work. Me certainly is in the course of his employment if he reaches the place of work or a point or an area which comes within the theory of notional extension, outside of which the employer is not liable to pay compensation for any accident happening to him. (Italics supplied)
In the other decision also, the relevant passage quoted with approval and ultimately came to be applied, reads thus:
'To come within the Act the injury by accident must arise both out of and in the course of employment. The words 'in the course of the employment' mean 'in the course of work which the workman is employed to do and which is incidental to it'. The words 'arising out of employment' are understood to mean that 'during the course of the employment, injury has resulted from some risk incidental to the duties of the service, which unless engaged in the duty owing to the master, it is reasonable to believe the workman would not otherwise have suffered. In other words there must be a causal relationship between the accident and the employment. The expression 'arising out of employment' is again not confined to the mere nature of the employment. The expression applies to employment as such - to its nature, its conditions, its obligations and it incidents. If by reason of any of those factors the workman is brought within the zone of special danger the injury would be one which arises 'out of employment. To put it differently if the accident had occurred on account of a risk which is an incident of the employment, the claim for compensation must succeed, unless of course the workman has exposed himself to an added peril by his own imprudent act. (Italics supplied)'
The statement of law as contained in Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol.33, 4th Edition, quoted with approval by Their Lordships, reads as hereunder:
'490. Accident travelling to and from work - The course of employment normally begins when the employee reaches his place of work. To extend it to the journey to and from work it must be shown that, in travelling by the particular method and route the particular time, the employee was fulfilling an express or implied term of his contract of service. One way of doing this is to establish that the home is the employee's base from which it is his duty to work and that he was travelling by direct route from his home to a place where he was required to work, but that is only one way of showing this; the real question at issue is whether on the particular journey he was travelling in the performance of a duty, or whether the journey was incidental to the performance of that duty and not merely preparatory to the performance of it. If the place where the accident occurs is a private road or on the employer's property, the accident is in the course of the employment because he is then at the scene of the accident by reason only of his employment and he has reached the sphere of his employment. The test is whether the employee was exposed to the particular risk by reason of his employment or whether he took the same risks as those incurred by any member of the public using the highway.' (Italics supplied)
7. A careful consideration of the principles laid down in the above noticed decisions of the Apex Court would go to show that it is well settled, as Their Lordships themselves indicate, that the theory of notional extension of employee's premises would take within it also the area which a workman passes and repasses in going to and in leaving the actual place of work and that a workman would be in the course of his employment, if he reaches the place of work or the area which comes within the theory of notional extension. So far as the case on hand is concerned, as indicated earlier, the worker left her child in the creche and was indisputably going for work near the Muster, which it is absolutely necessary for her to pass through when another co-worker under the same employer has committed the act of assault and caused the injury. In our view, it is not the reason or the cause for the assault that really matters, but the place and the point of time when the incident occurred resulting in the injury, and the proximity of the same to need for her presence at the time alone that will be relevant. Since the worker in this case was actually found to be near the Muster to get her assigned to the place of work, when the incident occurred the accident resulting in the injury must be held to have occurred on account of the risk which is in the course of the employment and it cannot be contended that there is not even any casual relationship between the accident and the employment to deny the benefits of the provisions of the Act to the worker concerned. Consequently, we are of the view that no exception could be taken to the order of the learned single Judge in conforming the award of compensation of the Commissioner of Workmen's Compensation in the present case. Therefore, we see no merit what so ever in the appeal. The appeal fails and shall stand dismissed. There will be no order as to costs. Consequently, CMP No.3276 of 1997 dismissed.