Chakravartti, C.J. - (1.) This appeal must be allowed on a point which does not appear to have been fully appreciated or properly canvassed before the learned Commissioner.
(2.) The appeal arises out of an application by one Satu Bala Bagdini, who claimed compensation to the amount of Rs. 1000/- from the appellant company on the ground that her son, Khandu Bagdi, who had been a workman employed under the appellant, had been bitten by a venomous snake while so employed and had died as a result of the bite. The employment of the deceased was said to be the cutting of 'sabai' grass for the purposes of a business carried on by the appellant company. The defence, which unfortunately appears to have been disfigured by many false pleas was, so far as the really material points are concerned, that the deceased had not been employed under the appellant at all, but was employed under a contractor, secondly, that his employment was of a casual nature, and, thirdly, that he could not be said to have been a workman within the definition in the Act.
(3.) At the trial, a further point appears to have been raised which was that the ousiness of the appellant company was agriculture and, consequently, nobody who had been employed as a worker in that business could claim to be a workman, as contemplated by the Act.;