IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD WEDNESDAY, THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF AUGUST TWO THOUSAND AND TEN HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD C.M.A.Nos.1120 of 2003, 1172 of 2003, 1180 of 2003, and 650 of 2010 C.M.A.No.1120 of 2003 Between: The District Manager, A.P. Urban Development and Housing Corporation, Kakinada ..Appellant AND Polamarisetty Manikyam and others .. Respondents C.M.A.No.1172 of 2003 Between: The District Manager, A.P. Urban Development and Housing Corporation, Kakinada ..Appellant AND Polamarisetty Padma and others .. Respondents C.M.A.No.1180 of 2003 Between: The District Manager, A.P. Urban Development and Housing Corporation, Kakinada ..Appellant AND Alla Suryanarayana and others .. Respondents C.M.A.No.650 of 2010 Between: The District Manager, A.P. Urban Development and Housing Corporation, Kakinada ..Appellant AND Polamarisetty Linga Babu and others .. Respondents COMMON JUDGMENT: All the four appeals arise out of the claims made under the Workmen’s Compensation Act in respect of the death of four workmen respectively in the same accident that occurred during the course of construction of a building for the benefit of Horticulture Department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh by the Andhra Pradesh Urban Development and Housing Corporation to whom the said work was entrusted, and are, hence, being disposed of by this common judgment. Polamarisetty Ramana, Polamarisetty Nookaraju, Polamarisetty Veera Venkata Nagaraju, and Alla Sreenu were workmen, who were working in the construction work of the building at Tetagunta along with other workers and at the time of accident on 2-2-1995, the said building suddenly collapsed killing the four workmen in the accident, which arose out of and in the course of their employment. The claimant in Case No.W.C.No.185 of 1996 is the wife of Polamarisetty Ramana, who was claimed to be a mason earning Rs.70/- per day in respect of whose death a compensation of Rs.1,00,000/- was claimed with interest and costs. The claimants in W.C.No.186 of 1996 are the wife, minor children and mother of Polamarisetty Nookaraju. While the applicants in W.C.No.187 of 1996 are the parents of Polamarisetty Veera Venkata Nagaraju, the applicants in W.C.No.188 of 1996 are the parents of Alla Srinu. The applicants in these three cases also made similar claims about the respective deceased and claimed a compensation of Rs.1,00,000/- each. The District Manager of the Andhra Pradesh Urban Development and Housing Corporation resisted the claims contending that all the legal representatives of the respective deceased were not impleaded and that as the Horticulture Department is the owner of the building and is the fund releasing authority, it has to be approached for any compensation. The factual claims of the applicants about the respective deceased’s income and the dependence of the applicants on the deceased were also respectively disputed. The Commissioner for Workmen’s Compensation and Assistant Commissioner of Labour, Kakinada, conducted the enquiry into all the four cases, examined witnesses for the applicants and the 3rd respondent Corporation and marked exhibits respectively. The Commissioner came to the conclusion in the impugned orders that the deceased workmen were proved to have died while they were on duty due to the accident that arose out of and in the course of their employment. The Commissioner also concluded that the Corporation is the contractor, which undertook the work for the Horticulture Department, the owner of the building, and therefore, both the contractor and the principal employer are responsible for payment of compensation to the respective applicants. The monthly wages of the workmen were notionally computed at Rs.1,000/- per month under Section 4 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act and the Commissioner with reference to the ages of the workmen arrived at respective compensations at Rs.67,776/-, Rs.80,664/-, Rs.89,600/- and Rs. 90,552/- respectively. The Opposite Parties viz., the Corporation and the Horticulture Department were directed to jointly and severally deposit the respective amounts. The Commissioner did not award any costs in favour of the applicants. The Corporation challenged the said awards under these four appeals contending that there was no evidence on record to show the working of the deceased with the appellant or the entitlement of the applicants to compensation or the cause for the accident being the negligence of any persons connected with the Corporation. The appellant also contended that the Horticulture Department, which is the owner of the building and the principal employer, is alone liable to pay the compensation and hence, it desired that the awards in question be reversed. Sri K. Mohan Rami Reddy, learned standing counsel for the Corporation, is heard and though the respondents are served with the notices in C.M.A.Nos.1172 of 2003 and 1180 of 2003, none entered appearance on their behalf, while all the four appeals are being disposed of by this common judgment notwithstanding the absence of service of notices on all the respondents in the other two appeals, as on facts, the awards are not susceptible to any interference in these appeals insofar as the applicants are concerned and as common questions of fact are involved in all the four appeals. The point for consideration is whether the appellant is liable to pay the compensation awarded by the Commissioner for Workmen’s Compensation to the different applicants and whether the Horticulture Department, the owner of the building, alone should be made liable to pay such compensation? Insofar as the four deceased workmen being engaged in the construction work of the building in question at the relevant time is concerned, the very fact that all the four of them died under the debris on the sudden collapse of the building under construction itself is proof positive that they were engaged as workers during the course of construction of the said building. That the building belongs to Horticulture Department of the State and that the appellant-Corporation is the contractor, which is making the construction on being entrusted with the same by the said Department are and cannot be in dispute and the responsibility of the contractor and the principal employer jointly and severally to compensate the legal representatives/dependents of the deceased workmen justly, reasonably and adequately cannot be in dispute. The four workmen working in construction work of the building were claiming to be masons by profession, which is probablised by the very work in which they were engaged and the claim of the dependents of the respective workmen is that they are getting Rs.70/- per day as wages. The said claim about the quantum of wages per day is not shown to be anything more than the minimum wages such masons would have been paid under the relevant statute at the relevant time nor were any records of the Corporation produced to show that the daily wages being paid to such workers were anything less. While even the Corporation did not claim the deceased to be working gratuitously in the construction of the building, the evidence before the Commissioner for Workmen’s Compensation showed the clear admission that the collapse of the building was due to mixing of sand and ash in cement. Even if such an allegation were to be considered not proved beyond reasonable doubt, but for defective construction, the collapse of the building would not have happened, which lends credence to the claims of the applicants in this regard. In any view, the death of the workmen while they were on duty in the accident arising out of and in the course of employment, necessarily entitles them to have the compensation paid to their dependents and the calculation of the compensation is also not shown to be in any manner violative of the statutory prescriptions under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Therefore, there is no reason to interfere with the awards in question. The learned standing counsel for the appellant Corporation however emphasized on the liability of the Horticulture Department, the principal employer, to pay the compensation while it is only a contractor executing the work entrusted to it and cannot be burdened with the liability to pay compensation. As it was the Corporation, which engaged this workmen as the contractor executing the work for the benefit of the Horticulture Department, it cannot totally absolve itself from the liability to pay the statutory compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. While the liability was fixed by the Commissioner himself jointly and severally against the contractor and the principal employer, the right of the Corporation to seek reimbursement of the amounts, if any, paid under the impugned awards, as the Department is the owner of the building, should be left open to be determined in any appropriate proceedings that may be taken recourse to by the Corporation and it is suffice herein to observe that the Corporation is at liberty to pursue its remedies in accordance with law against the Horticulture Department to recover the amounts paid by it under the impugned awards to the respective applicants. Subject to the above observation, the appeals are dismissed without costs. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 18-08-2010 Ksn