Definitions
3. In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context,-
(a) "agent", when used in relation to a mine, means any person appointed or acting as the representative of the owner in respect of the management of the mine or of any part thereof, and as such superior to a manager under this Act;
[* * *];
(b) "Chief Inspector" means the Chief Inspector of Mines appointed under this Act;
(c) "child" means a person who has not completed his [eighteenth year];
[(cc) "day" means a period of twenty-four hours beginning at midnight;]
(d) a person is said to be "employed" in a mine who works under appointment by or with the knowledge of the manager, whether for wages or not, in any mining operation, or in cleaning or oiling any part of any machinery used in or about the mine, or in any other kind of work whatsoever incidental to, or connected with, mining operations;
(e) "Inspector" means an Inspector of Mines appointed under this Act, and includes a District Magistrate when exercising any power or performing any duty of an Inspector which he is empowered by this Act to exercise or perform;
(f) "mine" means any excavation where any operation for the purpose of searching for or obtaining minerals has been or is being carried on, and includes all works, machinery, tramways and sidings, whether above or below ground, in or adjacent to or belonging to a mine:
Provided that it shall not include any part of such premises on which a manufacturing process is being carried on unless such process is a process for coke making or the dressing of minerals;
(g) "owner", when used in relation to a mine means any person who is the immediate proprietor or lessee or occupier of the mine or of any part thereof, but does not include a person who merely receives a royalty, rent or fine from the mine or is merely the proprietor of the mine subject to any lease, grant or license for the working thereof, or is merely the owner of the soil and not interested in the minerals of the mine; but any contractor for the working of a mine or any part thereof shall be subject to this Act in like manner as if he were an owner, but not so as to exempt the owner from any liability;
(h) "prescribed" means prescribed by regulations, rules or bye-laws;
[(i) "qualified medical practitioner" means any person registered under the Medical Council Act, 1973, and includes any person declared by the Government by notification in the official Gazette to be a qualified medical practitioner for the purposes of this Act;]
(j) "regulations" "rules" and "bye-laws" means respectively regulations, rules and bye-laws made under this Act;
[(jj) where work of the same kind is carried out by two or more sets workers working during different periods of the day, each of such sets is called a 'relay';]
(k) "serious bodily injury" means any 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; and
(l) "week" means the period between midnight on Saturday night and midnight on the succeeding Saturday night.