The right to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act survives only to the workman or, in case of his death, to his dependents, as defined in the Act.

Koshal, J.

One Arumugham was employed with the petitioner as a workman and, while on duty, died as a result of a fall from a tractor on the 29th of October, 1969. His mother filed claim for Rs. 3, 500 under the Workman's Compensation Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) before the Commissioner having jurisdiction, but the same was contested by the petitioner. During the pendency of that claim with the Commissioner, Arumgham's mother also died, whereafter her son Periaswami (respondent No. 1) and her two daughters Thailammal and Anjalai (respondents Nos. 2 and 3 respectively) made a joint application to the Commissioner praying that they be substituted for their mother as her legal representative. The application was also contested by the petitioner but was accepted by the Commissioner with a finding that the right to the claim survived to the three respondents and that they were entitled to be substituted as legal representatives for their mother.

2. The order of the Commissioner is dated the 30th of January, 1972, and it is that order by which the petitioner feels aggrieved and which he has attacked under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India with a prayer that it it be quashed by a writ of certiorari.

3. This petition originally came up for hearing before me sitting singly and it was then contended ins support of it that compensation payable under the Act could be claimed only by the injured workman or, in case of his death, by a body of persons described by the Act as "dependents", and not by any other person, that admittedly non of the respondents was a dependent within the meaning of that exertion used in the Act and that the application made by the respondents before the Commissioner for substitution of their names as their mother's legal representatives, was liable to be rejected. Reference in this connection was made to various provisions of the Act and specially to S. 9 which, inter alia, bars the devolution by operation of law of any lump sum or, half-monthly payment payable under the Act to any cl. (n) of sub-s. (1) of S. 2 which defines "a workman" and states that any reference to a who has been injured shall, where the workman is dead, include a reference to his dependents or any of them. This contention was sought to be met by the dicta in various judgments more particularly the one in Ikkassintakath Abdurahiman v. Madakkavu Nalikkal Beeran Koya, (1938) I MLJ 571, to the effect that the latter part of S. 9 according to which no lump sum or half-monthly payment shall pass to any person other than the workman, applies only to a workman who is in existence when the time for payment comes and not to one who died before compensation was awarded. As no reference to the definition of workman as appearing in the Act was made by the learned Judges who decided that case which, in may opinion, made all the difference to the determination of the point in disputes, I referred to car decision to a Full Bench and that is how we are now seized of it.

4. Section9 of the Act reads thus :

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

In holding this section to be limited in application to the case of an existing workman, Venkatarmana Rao and Abdur Rahman. JJ., who constituted the Bench in the Madras case, reasoned thus :

"Section 9 also has no bearing on the facts of the particular case. The first part of that section provides that no lump sum or half-monthly payment payable under the Act is capable of being alienated or subjected to attachment. This is for the purpose of securing the benefit which the Workmen's Compensation Act is intended to provide for the workman or the dependents of the workman. This part of the section has, therefore, no application to the present case. The ot