UNITED SPIRITES LTD. Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Facts: The petitioner is a manufacturer of Indian Made Foreign Liquor. It had, posted by the Government, a contingent of officers-one Circle Inspector, one Inspector, two Preventive Officers and eight Guards-to supervise the day-to-day functioning of the petitioner-factory. Following Sec. 14 of the Abkari Act ('the Act' for brevity) read with Rule 14 of the Kerala Distillery & Warehouse Rules, 1968 (Part-I) ('the Rules' for brevity), the Government has deployed the supervisory staff to ensure that there is no evasion of the duty on the manufacturer's part.

(2.) As per the statutory mechanism, the petitioner continued to pay to the said supervisory staff the salary and allowances. It is the specific case of the petitioner that from Nov. 2010, the Circle Inspector, heading the supervisory staff and being the competent authority to raise the necessary bills for payment of salary and other allowances by the petitioner, did not make any demand for the overtime allowance due for the months from Nov., 2010 to March, 2011. It is said to be in anticipation of the pay revision, which in fact was introduced through Exhibit P1, dated 26.02.2011.

(3.) As can be seen from Exhibit P1, the implementation of the pay revision was at two stages: the revised scale of pay was with effect from 01.07.2009; all other service benefits were to be paid with effect from 01.02.2011.