KRISHNA KURUP Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner carrying on railway catering business, challenges the notification issued under the Minimum Wages Act in 1987, fixing minimum rates of wages to the employees of railway restaurants. We have in a batch of writ petitions, disposed of today, by a separate judgment, upheld the validity of the notifications and rejected the contentions advanced on behalf of the Proprietors of hotels and restaurants and others. We have held that there was no illegality in the composition of the committee constituted under the Act, that there is no violation of Art. 14 and that the committee recommended and the Government fixed minimum wages strictly according to law. That judgment should govern the petitioner as well. But a new contention, peculiar to the railway catering establishments, relating to the competence of the State Government to fix minimum wages arises for determination in this writ petition.

(2.) THE petitioner is a licensee of Vegetarian refreshment rooms in the railway stations at Calicut . Palghat and Chalakudy. He secured these catering rights by entering into an agreement with the President of India and thus conducts his own business in the railway premises as a contractor. THE business is conducted by him for his own benefit and profit.

(3.) THESE railway refreshment stalls are not run by the railway Administration. The question is whether they are run "under the authority of" the Railway Administration. The expression "under the authority" of the Railway Administration, connotes that the business or activity is conducted as a business or activity of the Railway itself or is conducted through the instrumentality of an agency created by the Railways, The petitioner was conducting his own business as licensee of the Railway under a contract and was not carrying on the business of the Railways. The nature of the contract required, considerable control by the Railways, but that would not make the business carried on by the petitioner as that of the Railways The liability to pay wages to the employees in the refreshment stall is that of the employer, the petitioner, and not that of the Railways. It seems to be clear, therefore, that the appropriate Government is only the State Government and not the Central Government.