ZAHUR AHMED Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petititioner in the above writ petition is an employee of a cinema establishment which is being run under the name and style of M/s. Kapali Theatre in Bangalore City. He has challenged the constitutional validity of sub-sec. (2A) of S.3 of the Minimum Wages Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) in the following circumstances. By a Notificaion dt. 23-10- 1973 published in the Mysore Gazette dt. October 29, 1973, the State Government fixed the minimum wages payable to the seyeral categories of employees working in Cinema Industry in Bangalore City and other places in the State of Karnataka, The petitioner is working as an operator The Notification in question has also fixed minimum wages payable to persons working as operators in Cinema Theatres. When the petitioner approached the management to pay him wages at the rate fixed by the Notification, he was informed that the said Notification was inapplicable to him in view of the pendency of an industrial dispute between the workman and the management regarding fixation of wages when it was issued and the said proceeding had not yet come to an end. The management depended upon the sub-sec. (2A) of S.3 of the Act which reads as follows: Where in respect of an industrial dispute relating to the rates of wages payable to any of the employees employed in a scheduled employment any proceeding is pending before a Tribunal or National Tribunal under the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 ox before any like authority under any other law for the time being in force or an award by any Tribunal National Tribunal qr such authority is in operation and a Notification fixing or revising the minimum rates of wages in respect of the scheduled employment is issued during the pendency of such proceeding or the operation of the award, then, not with sanding anything contained in this Act, the minimum rates of wages so fixed or so revised shall not apply to those employees during the period in which the proceeding is pending and the award made there in is in operation or, as the case may be, where the Notification is issued during the period of operation of an award, during that period; and where such proceeding or award relates to the rates of wages payable to all the employees in the scheduled employment, no minimum rates of wages shall be fixed qr revised in respect of that employment during the said period.

(2.) Since the petitioner is being paid wages at a rate lower than the rate fixed by the Notification in question, he has filed this writ petition questioning the validity of sub-sec. (2A) of S.3 of the Act, on the ground that the classification of industrial establishments made by that sub-section violates Art.14 of the Constituion of India.

(3.) In order to survive an attack based on Art.14 of the Constitution, the classification made by the Legislature should satisfy twq tests, viz,, (1) that it must be fqunded on an intelligible differentia which distingushes persons or things that are grouped together from others left qut of the group; and (2) that the differentia must have a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by it.