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Judgment
Sarjoo Prosad, C.J
This is an application u/s 115 of the CPC for revision of an order passed by the District Judge of Catcher in an appeal u/s 17 (1) (a) of the Payment of wages act 1938 arising out of an order of the Authority directing payment to the opposite party of the wages claimed.
It appears that there was a Tea Estate and the Management The Labour Inspector appears to have been present at the discussion and so also the Petitioner Sri P. C. Bhatia who is a director of the Tea Co. the parties came to an agreement on 10th May, 1954 by virtue of which it was settled that the Minimum wage order is amended to allow garden with less than 7.5 maunds yield per acre to grant increments the employees named in the agreement would be paid emoluments specified against their names in a separate Paragraph of the agreement with effect from 1st January 1954; but till such amendment is made they would continue to draw the pay which they were drawing
The Minimum Wage Order was amended with effect from , 1st October, 1954, and the employees demanded payment of was at the increased rate in accordance with the terms of the agreement from of January, 1954. The Management contended they were liable to pay the increased rate only with effect from 1st October 1954, when the Order came into operation, and not from any earlier date. They further took the plea that the date 1-1-1954, as mentioned in the agreement, was a clerical error.
The Authority which heard the matter, accepted the case of the opposite party and held that the Management was liable to pay the amount claimed to the opposite party at the higher rate of wages as agreed upon in the conciliation meeting'' held on 10th May, 1954, with effect from 1-1-1954. In other words, he allowed the claim of the opposite party for the wages payable to them at the higher rate for the period from 1-1-54 to 30lh September, 1954'' amounting to Rs. 5686/3/-, the amount being payable within two months from the date of the, order.
The Authority was, however, of the view that the Management should not be liable to pay any compensation in the circumstances of the case. lie , - also found that the further claim of the opposite party for deducted wages and compensation there for had hot been satisfactorily established and, therefore, the claim on that head also was refused by him. The Petitioners, who are the representatives of the Tea Estate in question - one being the Manager and the other a Director, preferred an appeal against that order, and the learned District Judge affirmed the order in respect of the wages payable to the opposite party.
The opposite party had also preferred an appeal against the claim for compensation which had been disallowed. The learned Judge was of the view that as there was no good ground for delay in payment of the increased wage on the supposed plea that there was no agreement to pay the same with effect from 1-1-54, the opposite party employees were also entitled to some reasonable compensation the therefore, allowed compensation at the rate of ''Rs. 6/- perched. In the result, he dismissed the Petitioners appeal.
The order is now challenged in revision before us on two grounds. It has been contended by Mr, Ghose in the first instance that the opposite being employees on monthly payment, their Cass, would not fall under the Payment of Wages that and, therefore, the Authority concerned has no jurisdiction to entertain the claim.
Wages'' has been defined in Section 2 (vi) of the Act as meaning all remuneration, capable of being expressed in terms of money, which would, if the terms of J the contract of employment, express or implied, were fulfilled, be payable, whether conditionally upon the? regular attendance, good work or conduct or other behavior of the person employed, or otherwise, to a person employed in respect of his employment or of work done in such employment, and includes any bonus or other additional remuneration of the nature aforesaid. But it does not include certain other items to which I need not refer.
The definition of the word quite clearly shows that it may apply even to monthly payments. Mr. Ghose, however, relies on Section 4 of the Act in support of his contention that the word ''wages'' should be confined in to application to a daily or to a periodical wage-earner which is for less than a month and would not apply to a worker whose pay or salary is on a monthly'' basis. Now. Section 4 says:
(1) Every person responsible for the payment of wages u/s 3 shall fix periods (in this Act referred to as wage-periods) in respect of which such wages shall be payable, (2) No wage-period shall exceed one month.'' It is argued that Sub-section (2) clearly implies .that a person who gets a monthly salary cannot come within die Sub-section and falls outside the purview of the Act. Speaking for myself, I am unable to see how Sub-section (2) can be construed to mean this. If at all, it plainly suggests to me that the wage period may include the wage period of a month, but It should not exceed a month. Reference is also made to Sub-section (6) of Section 1 where it is provided that "nothing in this Act shall apply to wages payable in respect of a wage-period which, over such wage-period, average two hundred rupees a month or more.
In this provision also there is nothing to suggest that monthly payment of wage is altogether excluded. On the other hand, it can reasonably be construed to mean to include a monthly wage period where the salary or wage does not exceed two hundred rupees or more. Nor does Section 6 of the Act in any manner militate against the construction which I have adopted.
Section 6 merely provides that ''all Wages, shall be paid in current coin or currency notes or in both''. It is quite true that the Payment of Wages Act was not intended to apply to high salaried officers whose salary exceeds rupees two hundred or more. It. is intended to apply to small wage-earners and, therefore, a limitation has been fixed in regard to the Amount payable to such persons who can have the benefit of this Act.
But I find nothing in the various provisions to which our attention has been drawn to support the contention of Mr. Ghose that the Act has no application to cases of persons or workers who are drawing a monthly salary or whose wage is payable on a monthly basis provided the salary on the monthly basis does not exceed rupees two hundred or more. Mr. Ghose has, however, referred in this connection to a decision of the Madras High Court In In Re: K.V.V. Sarma, Manager, Gemini Studios, Madras,
The judgment in that case was delivered by Govinda Menon, J. (as he then was) and I must confess that the observations made by his Lordship in that case do very much lend countenance to the argument of the learned Counsel. In that case, the Jeamed Judge observed that
on a construction of the various provisions of the Payment of Wages Act, the underlying idea is that the term ''''wages" should be understood as compensation paid for work done for a period less than a month. It may be either daily or weekly, but! where the payment is to be made monthly, one finds it difficult to apply the provisions of the Payment of Wages Act to such circumstances;
and his Lordship was almost emphatic m his observation that on the terms of Sub-section
(2) of Section 4 it was Clear that the Act! was not meant to apply to any Kind of salaries ''payable monthly.
I ''have, given my reasons on an anxious examination of. the various relevant provisions and I find myself unable to subscribe to the proposition that on the plain terms of Sub-section (2) of Section 4, the Act Was inotapplicable - to persons getting a monthly wage Astir said, with great respect, I am inclined As think that the section did apply to a case of entirely-payment but not where the wage period gibes the yond that limit. I must, however, point out himself in that decision decisive on the point as, at a Later stage in the judgment he observed:
We are definitely of opinion that if the remuneration is to be paid daily or weekly, it can be Called wages; But where it is monthly remunerate payable On the last day of the month or after date,- and where the remuneration, considering the general standards of payment, is fairly high, then it has to be understood as salary.
To some extent we are relieved of the that of examining this decision too closely in view of certain observations in of the Supreme Court which appear to strengthen the conclusion at which we have arrived. In The Divisional Engineer, G.I.P. Railway Vs. Mahadeo Raghoo and Another, it appears that the Respondent was a gangman in the employ of the Central Railway drawing Rs. 18/- per month; but subsequently in 1947 the Railway Board introduced a scheme of grant of compensatory allowance and house-rent.
V As a result of this, the Railway employees were eligible for the allowance aforesaid and Respondent No. 1 became entitled to an allowance of rupees ten per month. '' This allowance he drew with the salary for a certain period when Government offered him quarters suitable to his post, which he refused to occupy. Thereafter the house-rent allowance was stopped by the Government. He then put in his claim before the Authority for recovery of the amount.
The actual point which arose for decision in that ease. was undoubtedly different, the point being whether house-rent allowance came within the purview of the definition of ''wages'' as contained in the Act; but it is significant that there was no point taken before their Lordships that the Respondent of I in that case, who was getting a monthly salary, was not a wage-earner at all and, therefore, the Payment of Wages Act could not be attracted. In A.V. D''costa Vs. B.C. Patel and Another, their Lordships of the Supreme Court at page 416 illustrated their point under the Payment of Wage Act with reference to a monthly wage earner They .observed thus:
In our opinion, the scheme of the Act as set forth .above shows that if an employee were to state that his wages were, say Rs. 100 per month, and that Rs. 10; had been wrongly deducted by the Authority responsible for the payment of wages, that is to say, that the deduction could not come under any one of the categories laid down in Section 7 (2), that would be a straight case within the purview of the Act and the Authority appointed u/s 15 could entertain the dispute.
This clearly shows that the matter was beyond any controversy and that even a monthly wage-earner could come within the purview of the Act provided he satisfied the other conditions mentioned ''in .Sub-section (6) of Section 1 of the Act. There is, therefore, no substance in this contention of the learned Counsel.
The next contention of Mr. Ghose is that here the wage payable to the opposite party was in dispute. The Payment of Wages Act presupposes that the wage payable is a fixed wage and it is only when there is delay in payment or there have been deductions in the matter of payment which were unauthorised, that the party aggrieved can take recourse to the provisions of this law.
It is an Act for summary decision of matters and was not intended to arm the Authority concerned with power to decide complicated questions which would be incidental ''to a dispute about the monthly wages payable. ,In this connection,'' he has referred us to a decision in Rajkumar Mills Ltd. v. Inspector; Payment of Wages, Madhya Bharat, AIR 1955 MP 60 (D). It is the duty of the Authority to decide about the quantum of wages payable and in doing so, it is bound to adjudicate upon the techs of the contract according to, which the wages were due to the party concerned.
In our opinion, the question is hardly a question of law in the present case; here it is entirely a question of fact. In this case, it was the agreement in question, on the basis of which and by virtue of which the opposite party claimed payment of their wages. Payment of wages was not disputed; nor was the amount payable to them in dispute. The only question which was, in dispute was whether there was a clerical error as to the date mentioned in the agreement from which the wages, as agreed upon by the parties, became payable. On this point, the Authority concerned as weir as the appellate Court have both found in favour of the opposite party.
They have held that there was no clerical error at all and that the wages agreed upon became payable from the 1st of January 1954, as mentioned in the document. This was a matter which certainly fell to be decided by the Authority concerned, in directing payment of wages. The point is almost covered by the authority of the decision of the Supreme Court in (S) A.V. D''costa Vs. B.C. Patel and Another, to which I have already referred. Their Lordships held in that case thus:-
If the parties entered into the contract of service, say by correspondence, and the contract is to be determined with reference to the letters that passed between them, it may be open to the Authority to decide the controversy and find out what the terms of the contract with reference to those letters were. But if an employee were to say that his wages were Rs. 100 per month, which he actually received as . and when they fell due but that he would be entitled to higher wages if .his claims to be placed on the higher wages scheme had been recognised and given effect to, that would not, in our opinion, be a matter within the ambit of his jurisdiction
The above quotation, if I may respectfully say so; clarifies the ambit of the Authority''s jurisdiction to -deal with such eases of controversy under the Payment of Wages Act. In this case, the controversy is confined mainly to the date, mentioned in the agreement between the parties, and there also the contention of the Petitioners merely was that it was a "clerical error. That has been found to be incorrect for substantial reasons given by the Authority as well is by the lowen appellate Court, Even the decision Anthony Sabastin Almeda Vs. R.M. Taylor and Another, on which reliance has been placed by Mr. Ghose for the Petitioners, supports the view that we have taken of the matter. Chagla, C. there "observed as follows:-
It would be open to the Authority to decide what is the quantum of wages due and whether that quantum has been paid or not. We considered the ''ambit of the jurisdiction of the Authority under the Payment of Wages Act in A.R. Sarin Vs. B.C. Patil and Another, and we laid down that the jurisdiction of the Authority really is determine the terms of the contract in so far as they relate to the payment of wages and in so far has he has to decide the liability of the employer to pay wages under the terms of the contract.
These decisions quite clearly show that the Authority in the present case did not exceed his jurisction in determining the matter with reference to "the wages payable to the opposite party which they ''had claimed in the circumstances. We accordingly find no .substance in the application, which we dismiss with costs: hearing fee Rs. 50.
Deka, J.
I agree.