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Judgment
Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan, J
This appeal by the insurer is against an award passed under the Workmen''s Compensation Act, 1923. Laiju was a driver of an autorickshaw. Before the Commissioner, the dispute appears to have revolved around the question whether Laiju committed suicide by dousing himself with an inflammable substance or whether his death occurred in the course of his employment as autorickshaw driver. The facts, going by submissions, disclosed that the autorickshaw was extensively damaged in the incident. The certificate regarding the said vehicle after the accident is not on record. It appears that RW1, the Assistant Sub Inspector of Police spoke about the police papers and investigation in connection with a case of unnatural death registered, enquired in to and reported to the Executive Magistrate as a case of suicide. We are not prepared to take it that the statement u/s 161 Cr.PC has to be considered as evidence to determine this case. Not only that, one of the persons whose statement was allegedly recorded by the police has tendered evidence as AW2. He has categorically stated that he did not tell anybody that it is a case of suicide. His version before the Commissioner on oath is not that Laiju committed suicide. He only saw Laiju having fallen down after suffering burn injuries. Laiju was at that time not able to communicate. In so far as the oral evidence of RW1, the Assistant Sub Inspector of Police is concerned, we would not give it any worth more than that of hearsay evidence, that too, generated through the police records which are inadmissible in evidence as primary evidence. A statement, if any, recorded from AW2, Andrews could have been used to contradict him during his cross-examination. The police papers cannot be relied on to disclose any particular story. With this, we see that the learned counsel for the appealing insurer says that there is no complaint about the incident having been closed by the Executive Magistrate accepting the police version that it was a case of suicide. Who would have objected? What would have been the purpose of any objection? None has a case that Laiju was killed by anybody else or that he succumbed ultimately to a motor accident where the person at fault, was somebody else. Under such circumstances, we are not impressed to hold that the so called finality attained by the closure reports at the hands of the Magistrate treating the case of Laiju as one of suicide can never be put against his dependents on the face of the primary evidence tendered on oath by the father of the victim and by Andrews who even according to the police papers, was available somewhere near the scene of occurrence. Not only that, the learned Commissioner has quoted different portions of the deposition of the Assistant Sub Inspector of Police. We have read his deposition tendered as RW1 which clearly spells out, that none had told the police that Laiju was seen to have committed suicide. There is no witness who told the police that he had seen Laiju committing suicide. It is of great importance to note that even according to RW1, the police had recovered 2 plastic bottles from the scene of occurrence, which were allegedly used by Laiju to douse himself with the petrol from the autorickshaw. They were sent for forensic examination. The report is that neither of them contained any inflammable materials. There is nothing on evidence that persuade us to upset the findings of the facts rendered by the Commissioner by treating them as unsustainable on any issue of law. Those findings cannot be treated as perverse or unavailable on the material evidence. We therefore, repel the plea of the insurer in that regard.
In so far as the plea of the insurer that non consideration of the materials and documentary evidence gives rise to question of law and the precedents cited by the learned counsel for the appellant in this regard; that to say, Abdul Raheem Vs. The Karnataka Electricity Board and Others, , in our view, the police papers did not amount to any material or documentary evidence to be considered as credible, reliable materials in opposition to the oral evidence available on record through the mouth of AW2 and RW1. That plea also does not, therefore, stand. With the aforesaid, we find no ground to entertain this appeal.
In the result, this appeal is dismissed. No costs.