In Brief
A sugarcane labourer died of a snake bite while working; his heirs claimed compensation under the Employee's Compensation Act, 1923. The Commissioner awarded compensation with interest from the accident date and imposed a penalty. The High Court removed the penalty but restricted interest to one month after the order. The Supreme Court held that under Section 4A(3)(a), interest is payable from the date compensation fell due (the accident date), not from later dates. Interest and penalty are separate provisions; the High Court erred by conflating them and thus wrongly limited interest. The appeal was allowed, and interest was restored from the date of the incident."
The lawyer headnote and full judgment text are available to registered users.