WAKEFIELD ESTATE Vs. MARUTHAN UCHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution to revise the order of the Labour Court of Coimbatore in M. W. P. No. 80 of 1957, dated 31 December 1957.

(2.) ON 19 October 1957, 32 persons who claimed to be workers in an estate called the Wake-field Estate applied through the president of the Neelamalai Plantation Workers' Union to the Labour Court at Coimbatore for certain directions under Section 20 (3) of the Minimum Wages Act. Their case was that they had been working in Wakefield Estate from March 1957 to September 1957, and that they had not been paid the wages due to them under the Minimum Wages Act. They claimed that a sum of Rs. 1,153-3-0 was due to them in the aggregate and prayed that directions be given to the management of the Wakefield Estate to pay them this money.

(3.) THE manager of the estate filed a counter in which he stated : None of the applicants is entitled to claim the difference in wages claimed as none of the petitioners is employed by this respondent. The workers filed a rejoinder to the effect that "the petitioners are workmen employed toy the respondent. " The respondent filed an additional counter in which he admitted that some of the applicants had worked in his estate for some days in March 1957; but he categorically asserted that none of the workers had worked in his estate on any day from April to September inclusive. The tribunal held that the workers were entitled to the amount they claimed and issued the directions prayed for. The management has now come to this Court to have this order quashed.