HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES UNION Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner, a registered trade union, claiming to be engaged in promoting welfare of labour class has filed this petition in public interest for striking down of Section 1(6) of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 which prescribed wage- ceiling of Rs. 1,600.00 per month.

(2.) . Petitioner's case is that the prescribed wage ceiling had become arbitrary, unreasonable and unreal with the passage of time and due to inflation and manifold rise in salary/wages of the employees and for various other reasons. Now, even the lowest paid employee was getting over Rs. 1,600.00 wages per month due to revision in Pay Scales in the light of 4th Pay Commission and 5th Pay Commission Reports. More even the Minimum Wages Act prescribed more than Rs. 1,600.00 wages per month to the lowest paid employee in Delhi and other parts in the country.

(3.) . Petitioner has submitted various charts containing wage rates to show that wage ceiling prescribed under the Act had become obsolete and redundant and so had the whole Act did not benefit any workman or employee presently. He accordingly wants the relevant provision of the Minimum Wages Act to be declared void and supports this by Supreme Court judgment in "Malpe Vishwanath Acharya and Others v. State of Maharashtra and Another, I (1998) SLT 596=1998 (2) SCC 1, in which the Court had dealt with the ceiling of standard rent in Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Act, 1947 and thought of striking it down on holding that the provisions of Act had become unreasonable and arbitrary in the course of time.