An accident to an employee while travelling in a bus provided by the employer for the purpose of reaching the workplace is an accident arising out of and in the course of employment.

Judgment

SUBBA RAO, J. - This appeal by special leave raises a short but difficult question of the true construction of S. 3(1) of the Workmen s Compensation Act (8 of 1923), hereinafter called the Act, and its application to the facts of this case.

2. The Bombay Municipal Corporation, hereinafter called the Corporation, runs a public utility transport service in Greater Bombay and the said transport service is managed by a Committee known as the Bombay Electricity Supply and Transport Committee. The said Committee conducts the transport service in the name of Bombay Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking. The Undertaking owns a number of buses and the Corporation employees a staff, including bus drivers, for conducting the said service. One P. Nanu Raman was one of such bus drivers employed by the corporation. There are various depots in different parts of the City wherein buses feeding that part are garaged and maintained. A bus driver has to drive a bus allotted to him from morning till evening with necessary intervals, and for that purpose he has to reach the depot concerned early in the morning and go back to his home after his work is finished and the bus is lodged in the depot. The efficiency of the service depends, inter alia, on the facility given to a driver for his journey to and from his house and the depot. Presumably for that reason Rule 19 of the Standing Rules of the Bombay Municipality B. E. S. T. Undertaking permits a specified number of the traffic outdoor staff in uniform to travel standing in a bus without payment of fares. Having regard to the long distances to be covered in a city like Bombay, the statutory right conferred under the rule is conducive to the efficiency of the service. On July 20, 1957, the said Nanu Raman finished his work for the day at about 7.45 p.m. at Jogeshwari bus depot. After leaving the bus in the depot, he boarded another bus in order to go to his residence at Santa Cruz. The said bus collided with a stationary lorry parked at an awkward angle on Ghodbunder Road near Erla Bridge, Andheri. As a result of the said collision, Nanu Raman was thrown out on the road and injured. He was removed to hospital for treatment where he expired on July 26, 1957. The respondent, his widow filed an application in the Court of the Commissioner for Workmen s Compensation, Bombay, claiming a sum of Rs. 3,500/- as compensation by reason of the death of her husband in an accident alleged to have arisen "out of and in the course of his employment". To that application the General manager of the B. E. S. T. Undertaking, Bombay, was made the respondent, and he contended, inter alia, that the accident did not arise "out of and in the course of the employment" of the deceased. The Commissioner dismissed the application accepting the contention of the General Manger of the B. E. S. T. Undertaking. On appeal, the High Court of Bombay held that the said accident arose "out of and in the course of the employment" of the said deceased and, on that finding, passed a decree in favour of the widow for a sum of Rs. 3,500/- with costs. The General Manager of the B. E. S. T. Undertaking has preferred the present appeal against the order of the High Court.

3. Section 3 (1) of the Act reads:

"If personal injury is caused to a workman by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, his employer shall be liable to pay compensation is accordance with the provisions of this chapter".

Mr. Pathak, learned counsel for the appellant, contends that the words "arising out of and in the course of his employment" are pari materia with those found in the corresponding section of English, statute, that the said words have been authoritatively construed by the House of Lords in more than one decision, that an accident happening to an employee in the course of his transit to his house after he left the precincts of his work would be outside the scope of the said words unless he has an obligation under the terms of the c