Independent Contractor Not Employee, His Dependants Not Entitled Under Employees Compensation Act: Kerala High Court

The Kerala High Court recently upheld an order passed by the Employees Compensation Commissioner (Industrial Tribunal), Idukki which rejected the compensation claim of the dependents of the deceased on the finding that he was an independent contractor and not an employee within the purview of the Act. The deceased was an electrician and used to supply light and mike sets for conducting small programs and he died due to electrocution while connecting mike set for the function organized by the respondents.Justice C. Pratheep Kumar observed that the deceased was an independent contractor and his work was not controlled by the respondents and was not an employee under the Act. “The mike set used in this case belonged to the deceased. Since it was only a hiring of mike set for the purpose of a programme, there was no necessity for the deceased to do his work personally. Instead, he could have done the same by engaging his own employees. His work of connecting the mike set is not controlled by the respondents. In the above circumstances, it is to be held that deceased Babu was not an employee but an independent contractor. Therefore, the impugned order passed by the Commissioner is perfectly justified.”The applicants are the dependents of the deceased who approached the High Court against the order of the Compensation Commissioner that rejected the compensation on the finding that he was not an employee under Section 2(1) (dd) of the Act, but an independent contractor. The counsel for the applicants submitted that the deceased was only a petty contractor and was entitled to compensation. It was argued that the Employees Compensation Act was a social security and beneficial legislation and thus it should not be interpreted rigidly to deny compensation to the employees. The Court noted that the deceased was an electrician and a mike operator. It noted that the respondents had only hired his service for conducting a function and had not engaged him for the purpose of any trade or business conducted by them. It noted that the deceased could have employed others to connect the mike set and he need not have done it personally. The Court noted that his work of connecting mike set was not controlled by the respondents and he was an independent contractor hired by them. The Court also relied upon the decisions in Chintaman Rao & Another v. The State Of Madhya Pradesh (1958), M.M.Mathew v. Industrial Tribunal (1959) and R. E. D''Souza v. S. Krishnan Nair (1968) that considered the differences between a workman under the Act and an independent contractor. Accordingly, the Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the order passed by the Tribunal. Counsel for the applicants: Advocates P.Ramakrishnan, T.C.KrishnaCounsel for the respondents: Advocates George Mathew, K.S.HariharaputhranCitation: 2023 LiveLaw (Ker) 678Case title: Latha v T V SahadevanCase number: MFA (ECC) NO. 90 OF 2016Click Here To Read/Download The Judgment

Independent Contractor Not Employee, His Dependants Not Entitled Under Employees Compensation Act: Kerala High Court

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