- (1.)The appellant, who was opposite party No. 1 in the court below, has preferred these appeals against the judgment dated 17-3-1973 passed by the Commissioner of Workmen's Compensation, Koraput Zone, in W. C. Cases Nos. 20/73 to 26/73 and 202/73. The eight cases were taken up together for hearing and one common judgment was passed governing all the said cases. Nobody appeared in this Court for the respondents. As interesting and important questions of law are involved in the decision of these cases, Mr. 'R. Mohanty, a senior counsel of this Court, appeared amicus curiae on Court's requests, for the claimants in these cases. As questions of law and fact in all these cases are common and similar, and all these appeals are from one and the same judgment they were taken up together for hearing, one set of argument wsa advanced by the counsel for both the parties, and are hereby being disposed of by this one judgment.
(2.)The brief facts in all these cases are that the appellant engaged respondent No. 2 (O. P. No. 2 in the court below) as a contractor to construct hume pipe culverts for the Ambaguda M. I. P. Canal crossing on the National Highway at different places. When the said work was being done, some workers employed by the contractor met with an accident, and eight of them were buried at the spot and died as a consequence thereof. The relations of the deceased workmen preferred claims before the Commissioner appointed under the Workmen's Compensation Act demanding compensation from the appellant on the ground that the appellant was the principal employer and so he was to pay the compensation in these cases under Section 12 (1) of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act'). The appellant admittedly was the Executive Engineer of the National Highway Division No. II, Sunabeda in the Koraput district, and he was in charge of the National Highway on which the said work was being constructed. The agreement with the contractor for the construction of the said work was signed by the appellant. It is not.disputed by the appellant that he was the proper authority to engage a contractor for the execution of the said work, and that he actually entrusted that work to the contractor. So the appellant in due discharge of his official duty and responsibility entrusted the execution of the said work to the contractor. So the appellant in course of his official business contracted with the contractor for the execution of the said work and when the said work was in progress the accident took place and the eight workmen died as a consequence thereof.
(3.)The learned Government Advocate appearing on behalf of the appellant contends that it cannot be said in these cases that the appellant in course of or for the purposes of his trade or business entered into the said agreement with the contractor, or that the said work was a part of the trade or business of the appellant. According to the learned Government Advocate the words "trade" or "business'' appearing in Section 12 (1) of the Act would bring within their scope only such work which have an economic and/or commercial object. As the appellant and/or his employer the State of Orissa did not have any economical and commercial object or interest in the execution of the work which was entrusted to the contractor, the provisions of Section 12 (1) of the Act will not apply and the appellant and/or the State cannot be held liable to pay any compensation on the basis of the said section. In support of his above submission the learned Government Advocate cited the decision (Y. Srinivasa Rao V/s. Commr. for Workmen s Compensation, Hyderabad, 1972 ACJ 398 ) wherein it has been held that the construction or execution of an irrigation project is outside the purview of a trade or business activity of the Government. Though the learned Judge deciding that case observed as above he did not rest his decision in the case on his above observation, but decided the same on another question not relevant for our purpose. Apart from that there is nothing in that decision to show that the learned Judge noticed subsection (2) of Section 2 in the Act. That sub-section reads as follows: "The exercise and " performance of the powers and duties of a local authority or of any department acting on behalf of the Government shall, for the purposes of this Act, unless a contrary intention appears, be deemed to be the trade or business of such authority or department." Therefore because of the above deeming clause, for the purpose of this Act and where there is nothing to the contrary, all acts done by a local authority or by an officer of a Government department or of a department acting on behalf of the Government shall be deemed to be the 'trade or business' of the said authority or officer, provided of course the said authority or officer acts in that direction in due exercise and performance of his powers and duties as such authority or officer. Therefore, the entrustment of the work in question to the contractor by the appellant in due discharge of his official duty shall be deemed to be the trade or business of the appellant. When a statute lays down such a deeming provision one has to accept and understand things as required under the said deeming clause in the Act, and one cannot falter in accepting what is said therein only because that may not be in conformity with the ordinary conception. In the case reported in 1952 AC 109 at page 132 their Lordships of Privy Council observed:
"If you are bidden to treat an imaginary state of affairs as real, you must surely, unless prohibited from doing so, also imagine as real the consequences and incidents which, if the putative state of affairs had in fact existed, must inevitably have flowed from or accompanied it."

They further observed that if the statute says that you must imagine a certain state of affairs; it does not say that having done so, you must pause or permit your imagination to boggle when it comes to the inevitable corollaries of that state of affairs." In the above view of the matter and in view of the deeming provision engrafted in Section 2 (2) of the Act, the entrustment of the work in question shall be deemed to have been done by the appellant in due course of or for the purpose of his trade or business, and the said work shall be deemed to be ordinarily a part of the trade or business of the appellant. So the provisions of Section 12 (1) of the Act would apply with all force to this case.