CHAPTER: XII WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION FOR INJURY BY ACCIDENT

CHAPTER: XII

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION FOR INJURY BY ACCIDENT

150. Employer's Liability for compensation: (1) If personal injury is caused to a worker by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, his employer shall be liable to pay compensation in accordance with the provisions of this Chapter.

(2) The employer shall not be liable to pay compensation -

(a)     in respect of any injury which does not result in the total or partial disablement of the worker for a period exceeding three days;

(b)    in respect of any injury, not resulting in death, caused by an accident which is directly attributable to -

(i) the worker having been at the time thereof under the influence of drink or drugs, or

(ii) the willful disobedience of the worker to an order expressly given, or to a rule expressly framed, for the purpose of securing the safety of worker,

or (iii) the willful removal or disregard by the worker of any safety guard or other device which he knew to have been provided for the purpose of securing the safety of worker.

(3) If-

(a) worker employed in any employment specified in part -A of the Third Schedule, attacked with any disease specified therein as an occupational disease peculiar to that of employment, or

 (b) a worker, whilst in the service of an employer in whose service he has been employed for a continuous period of not less than six months in any employment specified in Part-B of the Third Schedule, contracts any disease specified therein as an occupational disease peculiar to that employment, the contracting of the disease shall be deemed to be an injury by accident within the meaning of this section, and, unless the employer proves the contrary, the accident shall be deemed to have arisen out of and in the course of the employment.

Explanation- For the purposes of this sub-section, a period of service shall be deemed to be continuous which has not included a period of service under any other employer in the same kind of employment.

(4)The Government may,  by notification in the official
Gazette, add any description of employment to the employment's
specified in the Third Schedule and shall specify in the case of the
employment's so added the diseases which shall be deemed for the
purposes of this section to be occupational diseases peculiar to
these employment's respectively, and the provision of sub-section
(3) shall thereupon apply as if such diseases had been declared by
this Chapter to be occupational diseases peculiar to those
employment's.

(5)Save   as   provided  by   sub-section   (3)   and   (4),   no compensation shall be payable to a worker in respect of any disease unless the disease in directly attributable to a specific injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment.

(6)   Nothing herein contained shall be deemed to confer any right to compensation on a worker in respect of any injury if he has instituted in a Civil Court a suit for damages in respect of the injury against the employer or any other person;

(7) No suit for damages shall be maintainable by a worker in any county of law in respect of any injury-

a) if he has instituted a claim to compensation in respect of the injury before a Labour Court; or

(b) if an agreement has been come to between the worker and his employer providing for the payment of compensation in respect of the injury in accordance with the provisions of this Chapter.

 (8) For the purposes of this Chapter, 'worker' means any person employed by the employer directly or through contractors who is-

(a)    the railways servant as defined in section 3 of the Railways. Act, 1890 (IX of 1890), who is not employed in any administrative, district or sub-divisional office of the railway and not employed in any such capacity as is specified in the Fourth Schedule, or

(b)   employed in any such capacity as is specified in the Fourth Schedule, whether the contract of employment is expressed or implied, oral or in writing; and any reference to a worker who has been injured shall, where the worker is dead, include a reference to his dependents or any or them.

Explanation - The exercise and performance of the powers and duties of a local authority or of any department acting on behalf of the Government shall, for the purposes of this Chapter, unless a contrary intention appears, be deemed to be the trade of business or such authority or department.

151. Amount of compensation : (1) Subject to the provisions of • this Chapter, the amount of compensation shall be as follows, namely;

(a)     Where death results from the injury, a worker in receipt of monthly wages falling within limits shown in the third column of the Fifth Schedule the amount shown against such limit thereof;

(b)    where permanent total disablement results from the injury -

(i) in the case of an adult limits shown in Fifth Schedule the amount shown against such limits in the third column thereof;  and

(ii)   in the case of a minor - Taka ten thousand;

(c)  where permanent partial disablement results from the injury-

(i) in the case of an injury specified in the First Schedule, such percentage of the compensation which would have been payable, in the case of permanent total disablement's as is specified therein as being the percentage of the loss of earning capacity caused by that injury;

(ii) in the case of an injury not specified in the First Schedule, such percentage of the compensation payable in the case of permanent total disablement as is proportionate to the loss of earning capacity permanently caused by the injury; and

(d) where temporary disablement, whether total or partial, results from the injury, a monthly payment payable on the first day of the month following the month in which it is due after the expiry of a waiting period of four days a from the date of the disablement, and thereafter monthly during the disablement or during a period as specified in the last column of the Fifth Schedule; whichever period is shorter.

(2) Where more injuries than one are caused by the same accident, the amount of compensation payable under sub-section  (1), (c) shall be aggregated but not so in any case as to exceed the amount which would have been payable if permanent total disablement had resulted from the injuries.

(3) On the ceasing of the disablement before the date on which any monthly payment falls due, there shall be payable in respect of that month a sum proportionate to the duration of the disablement in that month.

152. Method of calculating wages : (1) In this Chapter and for
the purpose thereof the expression 'monthly wages' means the
amount of wages deemed to be payable for a month's service,
whether the wages are payable by the month or by whatever other
period or at piece rates,

(2) Such wages shall be calculated as following, namely :

(a) where the worker has, during a continuous period of not less than twelve months immediately preceding the accident, been in the service of the employer who is liable to pay compensation, the monthly wages of the worker shall be one-twelfth of the total wages to be
paid to him by the employer in the last twelve months of that period;

(b) where the whole of the continuous period of service immediately preceding the accident during which the worker was in the service of the employer who is liable to pay the compensation was less than one month, the monthly wages of the worker shall be the average
monthly amount which, during the twelve months immediately preceding the accident, was being earned by a worker employed on the same work by the same employer, or, if there was no worker so employed, by a worker employed on similar work in the locality;

(c) in other cases, the monthly wages shall be thirty times the total wages earned in respect of the last continuous period of service immediately preceding the accident from the employer who is liable to pay compensation, divided by the number of days comprising such period.

Explanation : a period of service shall, for the purpose of this section, be deemed to be continuous which has not been interrupted by a period of absence from work exceeding fourteen days.

153. Review : (1) Any monthly payment payable under this Chapter; either under an agreement between the parties or under the order of a Labour Court, may be reviewed by the Labour Court,
If-

(a)       on the application either of the employer of the worker accompanied by the certificate of a registered medical practitioner that there has been a change in the condition of the worker, or

(b)      on such application without medical certificate on the ground that the determination of compensation was obtained  by  fraud  or  under  influence or otherimproper mean or that in such determination there is
a mistake or error apparent on the face of the record.

(2) Any monthly payment may, on review under this section, subject to the provisions of this Chapter, be continued, increased, decreased or ended, or if the accident is found to have resulted in permanent disablement, be converted to the lump sum to which .the worker is entitled less any amount which he has already received by way of monthly payment.

154. Commutation of monthly payments : (1) The employer may pay lump sum amount as monthly payments, by agreement between the parties or,

(2) If the parties do not agree as such and the payments have been continued for not less then six months, on the application of either party of the Labour Court be redeemed by the payment of a lump sum of such amount as may be determined by the Labor Court.

155. Distribution of compensation : (1) No payment of  compensation in respect of a worker whose injury has resulted in death, and no payment of a lump sum as compensation to a person under a legal disability, shall be made otherwise than by deposit with Labor Court.

(2) No such payment made directly by an employer shall be deemed to be a payment of compensation under subsection (1), unless a worker, during the periods of his employment, nominated in the prescribed manner any of his dependents to receive the amount of compensation in the even of an injury resulting in his death ;

Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), in the case of a deceased   worker, an employer may make to any dependent advances on account of compensation and such advances shall be deducted by the Labor Court from the compensation payable to that dependent and repaid to the employer.

Any other sum which is payable as compensation may be deposited with the Labor Court on behalf of the person entitled thereto.

The receipt of the Labor court shall be a sufficient discharge in respect of any compensation deposited with it.

On the deposit of any money under sub-section (1) as compensation in respect of a deceased worker, the Labor Court shall, if it thinks necessary, cause notice to be published or to be serviced on each dependent in such manner as it thinks, fit, calling upon the dependents to appear before it on such date as it may fix for determining the distribution of the compensation.

If the Labor court is satisfied after any enquiry which it may deem necessary, that no dependent exists, it shall not less than two years after the date of deposit, transfer the balance of the money to such fund or funds for the benefit of workers as the Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify or establish.

The Labor Court shall, on application by the employer, furnish a statement showing in detailed all disbursements made.

Compensation deposited in respect of a deceased worker shall, subject to any deduction made under the proviso to sub section (1), be apportioned among the dependents of the deceased worker or any of them in such proportion as the Labor Court thinks fit, or may, in the discretion of the Labor Court, be allotted to any one dependent.

(10)         Where any compensation deposited with the Labor Court is payable to any person, the Labor Court shall, if the person to whom the compensation is payable is not a person under a legal disability, and may, in other cases, pay the money to the person entitled thereto.

Where any lump sum deposited with the Labor Court is payable to a person under a legal disability, such sum may be invested, applied or otherwise dealt with for the benefit of such person during his disability, in such manner as the labor Court may direct.

Where a half monthly payment is payable to any person under a legal disability the Labor Court many, of its own motion or on an application made to it in the Behalf, order that the payment be made during the disability to any dependent of the worker or to any other person whom the Labour Court thinks best fitted to provide for the welfare of the worker.

(13) Where, on application made to it in this behalf or otherwise, the Labor Court is satisfied that, on account of neglect of children on the part of a parent or on account of the variation of the circumstances of any dependent or for any gather sufficient cause, an order of the Labor Court as to the distribution of any sum paid as compensation or as to the manner in which any sum payable to any such dependent is to be invested, applied or
otherwise dealt with ought to be varied, the Labor Court may make such order for the variation of the former order as it thinks just in the circumstances of the case:

Provided that no such order prejudicial to any person shall be made unless such person has been given an opportunity of showing cause why the order showing cause why the order should not be made, or shall be made in any case in which it would involve the repayment by a dependent of any sum already paid to him.

(14) Where the Labour Court varies any order under sub­ section (13) by reason of the fat that payment of compensation to any person has been obtained by fraud, impersonation or other improper mans, any amount so paid to or on behalf of such person may be recovered in the manner hereinafter provided in section 329.

156.       Compensation not to be assigned, attached or charged :

Save as provided by this Chapter, no lump sum or monthly payment payable under the Chapter shall in any way, be capable of being assigned or charged or be liable to attachment or pass to any person other than the worker by operation of law, nor shall any claim be set off against the same.

157.       Notice and claim: (1) No claim for compensation shall be entertained by a Labor Court unless notice of the accident has been given in the manner hereinafter provided as soon as