On a petition for claim of compensation having been filed by the respondent, father of the deceased, under the Workmen's Compensation Act, before the learned Commissioner for Workmen 's Compensation, Jabalpur, the learned Commissioner after trial of the case found that the deceased was a workman who died due to personal injuries caused to him by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment and held the employer liable to pay compensation and determined the amount of compensation in accordance with the provisions for workmen's compensation as Rs.30,000/- with interest at the rate of 6% P.G .from the date of accident and directed the same to be paid to the dependants of the deceased.

Being aggrieved by the impugned order awarding compensation, the employer has filed this appeal.

The learned counsel for the appellant-employer has submitted that the learned Commissioner has wrongly held the deceased to be a workman. It has been submitted that the deceased Shaiful Haque who was working as Traffic Incharge inside the mines, died in the course of employment on 4.9.83 and" as per the definition of "workman" under the Workmen's Compensation Act 1923 a workman is any' person employed on monthly wages not exceeding one thousand rupees and that the monthly wages of the deceased exceeded rupees one thousand. It was only on 1.7.84 that the words "on monthly wages not exceeding one thousand rupees" were omitted by amendment Act No.22 of 1984 from the definition of workman.

To the above argument of the learned counsel f0r the employer, the reply by the learned counsel for the deceased workman is that the learned Commissioner has found the monthly wages to be Rs.900.42 only after deducting the underground allowance, over- time allowance, sick-allowance and extra allowance.

According to the learned counsel, the deductions have been validly made by the learned Commissioner since the said allowance are not liable to be included in wages as defined under the Act.

The learned counsel for the respondent-employee has, further, submitted that the amending Act No.22 of 1984, whereby the limitation is put by the words "on moI1thly wages not exceeding one thousand rupees" has been deleted from the definition of workman, is a piece of welfare legislation and as such it should be given retrospective effect so as to cover the pending case of the deceased employee, who died on 4.9.83, prior to the said amendment, within the meaning of workman. Learned counsel has cited a decision of this Court in a Motor Accident Claim case Dev ji and others v. Unvar-khan and others (1989 JLJ 396) in support of his submission.

Held: Without going into the question whether the learned Commissioner was justified in excluding the various allowances aforesaid while determining wages of the deceased employee, I think that the limitation of wages of Rs.l,000/cannot be allowed to operate to the disadvantage of the deceased employee in pending case of compensation in view of the amending Act No.22/84 which being a piece of welfare legislation, should be given retrospective effect to the benefit of the employee in determining his entitlement to compensation in a pending matter.

The learned counsel for the appellant employer has next submitted that the deceased employee died of heart attack in the course of his employment, but there is no casual relationship established between the heart attack and the employment so as to come to a definitive conclusion that the injury was caused to the workman by accident arising out of his employment. The finding of the learned Commissioner that the death due to heart attack arose out of the employment of the deceased is, therefore, assailed as not maintainable in law.

The only medical evidence on record is the post mortem report in which the opinion recorded by the Assistant Surgeon shows that the cause of death of deceased Shaiful Haque was shock due to rupture of the heart (left ventricle).

There is no evidence apart from the po