JUDGMENT - MOHTA V.A., J.:---This is an appeal under section 30 of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 (the Act) by the legal heirs of the deceased Abdul Aziz Qureshi, whose claim for compensation under section 22 of the Act has been dismissed by the Commissioner.

2. Abdul Aziz, aged 51, was a bus driver in the service of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC). On 7-11-1983, in the regular course of his employment, he drove a passenger bus from Umred to Nagpur. The bus reached Nagpur about two hours late at 8.30 p.m. The second part of the journey was to commence for destination Girad at 9.30 p.m. The bus was stationed at the bus stand platform. All passengers got down and the conductor Iqbal Shaikh proceeded to issue tickets. When the first two passengers to Girad Ramchandra and Mohd. Hussain entered the bus, they found Abdul Aziz lying unconscious on the bonnet and the steering wheel. They reported the matter to the conductor who along with mechanic Mohd. Akram entered the bus, lifted the body of Abdul Aziz, put it in the lying condition and straightway took the bus to the Government Medical College Hospital, where Abdul Aziz was declared dead by the attending doctor at about 9 p.m. The death was attributed to heart failure due to sudden heart-attack.

3. The case of the legal heirs-widow Zubeda Bano, sons and daughters has been and is that Abdul Aziz met with an accidental death as a result of fall while attempting to change the destination board of the bus from inside the cabin and it was a case of personal injury caused by the accident, "arising out of and in the course of his employment" as contemplated under section 3 of the Act. The MSRTC denied the liability and resisted the claim taking a stand that it was a case of natural death which in no way was connected with the employment. The legal heirs examined Zubeda Bano and Dr. More, who had performed the post-mortem examination on the dead body of Abdul Aziz. They also filed several documents such as departmental reports, spot statements of two passengers, the conductor and the mechanic. Zubeda Bano had naturally no personal knowledge of the incident and her version was hearsay. MSRTC examined no witness. The Commissioner held that since there was no direct evidence about how the incident actually took place and the deceased was not a heart patient, the legal heirs had failed to discharge the burden of proving the ingredients of charging section 3 of the Act.

4. Having heard the parties and perused the record it seems to us that the entire approach of the Commissioner was hypertechnical and this appeal deserves to be allowed.

It is true that there is no direct evidence of the incident. It is equally true that very scanty material is available on record about the circumstances in which the incident took place. But the absence of ample evidence should not relieve the Court of its duty to arrive at a conclusion on the vital issues on the basis of available material. The Evidence Act as such does not apply to the proceedings under the Act, as has been held in (Union of India v. T.R. Varma)1, A.I.R. 1957 S.C. 882, and (Burhwal Sugar Mills Ltd. v. Ranjan)2, 1982 Lab.L.J. 84. The Act is a beneficial legislation intended to give some security to the workman in certain types of employment. Indeed it contains a sort of mini-insurance scheme. The liability of the employer under the Act is conceptually quite different from the liability under tort. All these facts, therefore, call for a broad and liberal construction of the Act, lest its evident object is defeated. "When evidence is balanced" observes Gujarat High Court in the case of (Bal Shakri v. New Manekchowk Mills Ltd.)3, 1961(1) L.L.J. 585, "if the evidence shows greater possibility which satisfied a reasonable man that the work contributed to the causing of the personal injury, it would be enough for the workman to succeed".

5. Section 3 is the soul of the Act and it specifies the circumstances under which the

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