ASPINWAL AND CO LTD Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these Writ Petitions, the Petitioners, have questioned the validity of the notifications issued by the StateGovernment under Section 3 of the Minimum Wages Act ('the Act' for short) fixing minimum wages for various employments specified in Part -II of the Schedule to the Act. The first group of these Petitions are by the employers and the second group are by Trade Unions on behalf of workmen in various industries. Both are aggrieved by the impugnednotifications, but for different reasons.

(2.) THE facts of the case, in brief, and to the extent necessary for the consideration of general points arising for consideration in these Petitions are as follows : Minimum wages had been fixed for various categories of employees in different schedule employments under the Act by earlier notifications issued in or about the year 3978 -79 under Section 3 of the Act. In the year 1981, the StateGovernment proposed to revise the rates of minimum wages by the mode specified in Section 5(1)(b) of the Act. For this purpose the State Government, as required under Section 5(1)(b) of the Act, published its proposal by notifications in July 1981 inviting representations from persons likely to be affected thereby. The Petitioners and others who are managements of different kinds of scheduled employments, made their representations. Similarly, representations were also made on behalf of the workmen engaged in those employments. The State Government, as required under the proviso to Section 5(2) read with Section 7 of the Act consulted the Advisory Board constituted in terms of Section 9 and issued finalnotification on 11 -2 -1982 and other dates fixing minimum wages of different categories of workmen, in various employments. Aggrieved by the said notifications large number of Writ Petitions, namely, W.P. No. 11521 to 11525 of 1982 andconnected cases, were presented before this Court. Those Writ Petitions were allowed. The operative portion of the said judgment reads.

(3.) SOME of the points urged by the learned Counsel for the parties are general and common to all the petitions and some of the points are special in respect of some of the petitions. In the first instance, I shall set out the general points urged by the parties as common to all the petitions and consider them and thereafter I will proceed to consider the special points urged in the petitions presented bymanagements of each of the employments and the special points urged in the petitions by the workmen.