Employment Injury :
It means a personal injury to an employee caused by accident or an occupational disease arising out of and in the course of his employment, being an insurable employment, whether the accident occurs or the occupational disease is contracted within or outside the territorial limits of India. [Section 2(8)]
It is well settled that an employment injury need not necessarily be confined to any injury sustained by a person within the premises or the concern where a person works. Whether in a particular case the theory of notional extension of employment would take in the time and place of accident so as to bring it within an employment injury, will have to depend on the assessment of several factors. There should be a nexus between the circumstances of the accident and the employment. On facts no case could be an authority for another case, since there would necessarily be some differences between the two cases. Therefore, each case has to be decided on its own facts. It is sufficient if it is proved, that the injury to the employee was caused by an accident arising out of and in the course of employment no matter when and where it occurred. There is not even a geographical limitation.
In E.S.I. Corpn. Indore v. Babulal, 1982 Lab. I.C. 468, the M.P. High Court held that injury arose out of employment where a workman attending duty in spite of threats by persons giving call for strike and was assaulted by them while returning after his duty was over. A worker was injured while knocking the belt of the moving pulley, though the injury caused was to his negligence, yet such an injury amounts to an employment injury (Jayanthilal Dhanji Co. v. E.S.I.C., AIR AP 210).
The word injury does not mean only visible injury in the form of some wound. Such a narrow interpretation would be inconsistent with the purposes of the Act which provides certain benefits in case of sickness, maternity and employment injury (Shyam Devi v. E.S.I.C., AIR 1964 All. 42).