Registration of agreements of compensation

Section 28 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923, deals with the registration of agreement of compensation. The section states that:

1. Where any lump-sum amount payable as compensation has been settled by agreement, a memorandum thereof shall be sent by the employer to the Commissioner, who shall, on being satisfied about its genuineness, record the memorandum in a registered manner. This settlement of compensation by agreement could be by way of redemption of a half-monthly payment or otherwise, or the compensation by agreement could be settled as being payable to a woman or a person under a legal disability.

The registration of agreement of compensation would be done provided that:

1. No such memorandum shall be recorded before seven days, after communication of notice by the Commissioner to the parties concerned;
2. [Clause (b) omitted by Act 5 of 1929.];
3. the Commissioner may at any time rectify the register;
4. where it appears to the Commissioner that the agreement, as to the payment of a lump-sum whether by way of redemption of a half-monthly payment or otherwise or an agreement as to the amount of compensation payable to a woman or a person under a legal disability, should not be registered because of the inadequacy of the sum or amount or because the agreement has been obtained by fraud or undue influence or other improper means, he may refuse to record the memorandum of the agreement and may make such order including an order as to any sum already paid under the agreement as he thinks just in the circumstances.
2. Under this Act, an agreement for the payment of compensation that has been registered under sub-section (1) shall be enforceable, despite anything contained in the Indian Contract Act 1872 or in any other law for the time being in force.

Apart from this, section 29 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923, gives the laws about the effect of failure to register agreement. The Act for this purpose states that:

Where a memorandum of any agreement, the registration of which is required by section 28, is not sent to the Commissioner as required by that section, the employer shall be liable to pay the full amount of compensation which he is liable to pay under the provisions of this Act, and notwithstanding anything contained in the proviso to sub-section (1) of section 4, shall not, unless the Commissioner otherwise directs, be entitled to deduct more than half of any amount paid to the workman by way of compensation whether under the agreement or otherwise.

This means that when a memorandum of any agreement is not sent to the Commissioner for registration, the employer shall be liable to pay the full amount of compensation that he is liable to pay under the provisions of this Act.