OBLIGATIONS AND RESPONSIBILITY OF AN EMPLOYER :
(i) Power of Commissioner to require from employers statements regarding fatal accidents
(a) Where a Commissioner receives information from any source that an employee has died as a result of an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, he may send by registered post a notice to the employee’s employer requiring him to submit, within thirty days of the service of the notice, a statement, in the prescribed form giving the circumstances attending the death of the employee, and indicating whether, in the opinion of the employer, he is or is not liable to deposit compensation on account of the death.
(b) If the employer is of opinion that he is liable to deposit compensation, he shall make the deposit within thirty days of the service of the notice.
(c) If the employer is of opinion that he is not liable to deposit compensation, he shall in his statement indicate the grounds on which he disclaims liability.
(d) Where the employer has so disclaimed liability, the Commissioner, after such inquiry as he may think fit, may inform any of the dependents of the deceased employee, that it is open to the dependents to prefer a claim for compensation and may give them such other further information as he may think fit. (Section 10A)
(ii) To submit reports of fatal accidents and serious bodily injuries
(i) Where by any law for the time being in force, notice is required to be given to any authority, by or on behalf of an employer, of any accident occurring in his premises which results in death or serious bodily injury, the person required to give the notice shall, within seven days of the death or serious bodily injury, send a report to the Commissioner giving the circumstances attending the death or serious bodily injury in the prescribed form (Form EE of the Workmen’s Compensation Rules: Rule 17).
“Serious bodily injury” means an injury which involves, or in all probability will involve, the permanent loss of the use of, or permanent injury to, any limb, or the permanent loss of or injury to the sight or hearing, or the fracture of any limb, or the enforced absence of the injured person from work for a period exceeding twenty days. [Expl. to Section 10B(1)]
(ii) The State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, extend the provisions of sub-section (i) to any class of premises other than those coming within the scope of that sub-section, and may, by such notification, specify the persons who shall send the report to the Commissioner.
(iii) Nothing in this section shall apply to the factories to which the Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948, applies. (Section 10B)