The term 'process' in Schedule III of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923, should be interpreted broadly to include any continuous and regular action or succession of actions leading to a specific result, and not necessarily involving an operation on a material to transform it to a certain state.

CHAKRAVARTTI, C. J.

( 1 ) THIS appeal involves a question of first impression under the Workmen's Compensation Act which is a pure question of law, arising out of facts now accepted by both parties. The facts are as follows.

( 2 ) THE appellant, Khuda Bux, was employed for a long time in a printing press kept by the respondent, first under a contractor and then since October, 1948, directly. After putting in over forty years of service, he found himself a total wreck and unable to work any longer. He first absented himself from duty on the 26th January, 1950 and did not rejoin. The capacity in which he worked in the press was that of an impositor and his duties were that after the matters to be printed had been set in type on a linotype machine, he took the types and arranged them so as to make up a frame and then fixed them up in a frame or chest. It has been found that he is suffering from chronic lead poisoning and it has also been found that he contracted the disease by having had to handle lead in the course of his employment. The disability which the disease has brought on him is permanent and total. During his employment, his wages were Rs. 60/- to Rs. 70/- per month.

( 3 ) ON 26th August, 1950, the appellant applied for compensation under the Workmen's Compen-isation Act for personal injury by accident. The application did not state under what section of the Act it was made, but it was clear from the nature of the application that the appellant was making a case under Section 3 (2) of the Act and that he was pleading an occupational disease specified as peculiar to his employment in Part B, Sen. III.

( 4 ) THE Commissioner has found that the appellant was a workman within the meaning of Section 2 (1) (n) of the Act, read with Clause (ii) of Schedule II. Yet, and in spite of finding that the appellant had suffered the personal injury of lead-poisoning arising out of and in the course of his employment he has dismissed the claim in the view that in Schedule III of the Act, the disease of lead poisoning had been specified as peculiar only to employments which were processes involving the use of lead, but not also employments which consisted in the mere handling of lead. In the Commissioner's view, the schedule made a clear distinction between handling and process and since the appellant's employment could not be called a process, he was not entitled to succeed under Section 3 (2 ). The appellant did not accept that decision and has preferred the present appeal.

( 5 ) THE principal question involved in the appeal thus is whether on the true construction of the relevant entry in Schedule III, the view taken by the Commissioner was right. But before taking up that question, a point raised by the respondent, which was not taken in the Court below, may be disposed of.

( 6 ) IT was contended that the appellant was not even workman and that the Commissioner had found him to be one, by wrongly applying the definition of 'manufacturing process' as contained in the Factories Act of 1948, whereas it was the definition in the Act of 1934 which ought to have been applied. Clause (ii) of Schedule II of the Workmen's Compensation Act, to quote only the material part, defines 'workman' as a person "employed * * in any premises wherein * * on any one day of the preceding twelve months, ten or more persons have been employed in any manufacturing process, as defined in Clause (g) of Section 2, Factories Act, 1934. " It was contended that the definition of 'manufacturing process' in the Factories Act of 1934 did not contain Clause (iv) of the present definition which speaks of "printing by letterpress, lithography, photogravure or other similar work," and there- fore the appellant, who worked in a printing press, could not be said to have been employed at a place where a 'manufacturing process' within the meaning of the Factories Act of 1934 was carried on. He was, therefore, not entitled to be regarded as a workman.

( 7 ) IN my opini

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