The employer-employee relationship must be established with evidence, and familial ties do not undermine this if supported by admissions.

JUDGMENT

Manoj Kumar Ohri, J. The appellant has preferred the present appeal under Section 30 of the Employees' Compensation Act, 1923 (hereinafter, referred to as the `Act'), assailing the order dated 16.04.2018 passed by the learned Commissioner, Employees' Compensation in Case No.CEC-D/NE/18/2017/1125-1127, whereby death compensation was awarded to respondent Nos.1 and 2/claimants and the appellant directed to deposit Rs.8,90,840/- alongwith interest @ 12% p.a. with effect from 19.07.2017 till realization.

2. Brief facts, as emerge from the records, are that respondent Nos.1 and 2 had filed a petition under Section 22 of the Act, claiming compensation on account of death of their son/Nitish Gautam. As per the averments, Nitish Gautam, aged 20 years, was employed as a driver with respondent No.3 on the latter's car bearing No. DL 7CM 0135 and was drawing wages @ Rs.12,000/- per month. The car was insured with the appellant. On 19.07.2013, while Nitish Gautam was driving the car in discharge of his duty at about 2:15 P.M., it went out of control near Sector-7, GT Road, Haryana and collided with an Innova Car coming from the opposite side. The body of Nitish Gautam was recovered by police officials and his postmortem was conducted at Government Hospital, Sonipat, Haryana. On account of fatal injuries received by the deceased in the accident, an FIR bearing No.207/2013 was registered under Sections 279/337/304A IPC at P.S. Murthal, Sonipat, Haryana.

3. Learned counsel for the appellant contended that the claimants failed to establish employer-employee relationship between the deceased/Nitish Gautam and respondent No.3/employer in the proceedings before the learned Commissioner. In this regard, he submitted that respondent No.3 is in fact real uncle of the deceased and could not have been his employer. In support of his submission, learned counsel referred to the pleadings made before the MACT in cases filed separately on behalf of the present claimants as well as one Srishti Rustagi, who was statedly a co-passenger of the deceased on the date of the accident. To support his case, reliance was also placed by learned counsel on a decision of the Karnataka High Court in Divisional Manager, United India Insurance Company Ltd., Davanagere v. Gujjamma and others reported as 2004 SCC OnLine Kar 30.

4. On the other hand, learned counsel for respondent Nos. 1 and 2 refuted the submissions made on behalf of the appellant by contending that the employer-employee relationship between deceased and respondent No.3 was duly proved in the proceedings before the learned Commissioner.

5. I have heard learned counsels for the parties as well as perused the entire material placed on record.

6. At the outset, it is pertinent to observe that in terms of Section 30 of the Act, a challenge to the order of a Commissioner can be made only on a substantial question of law. In this regard, the Supreme Court in North East Karnataka Road Transport Corporation v. Sujatha reported as (2019) 11 SCC 514 has held the scope of an appeal under Section 30 of the Act to be limited to substantial questions of law, and that findings of facts proved either way are not to be likely interfered with. Relevant excerpt from the decision is reproduced hereunder:

"9. At the outset, we may take note of the fact, being a settled principle, that the question as to whether the employee met with an accident, whether the accident occurred during the course of employment, whether it arose out of an employment, how and in what manner the accident occurred, who was negligent in causing the accident, whether there existed any relationship of employee and employer, what was the age and monthly salary of the employee