MATBER SINGH Vs. BHOLA DATT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendant's second appeal in a suit for declaration that the plaintiff had fully paid up the wages of defendants and for an injunction restraining them from enforcing Award No. 83 of 1965 of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Kirtinagar, dated 15th November, 1965, or to recover anything thereunder. The plaintiff-respondent is a contractor. He undertook the job of construction on the Rishikesh- Kirtinagar and Srinagar Rudra Prayag roads. One of the jobs on the Rishikesh- Kirtinagar road fell in the district of Tehri Garhwal but the other job on Srinagar-Rudra Prayag road fell in the district of Pouri. The plaintiff employed clerks and mates and recruited coolies for the job. Defendant No. 1 was the Mata in charge of both the jobs. According to the plaintiff's case he used to take money from the plaintiff to disburse it among the Coolies; that the accounts were fully settled and the amount due to the Coolies had been fully paid by the plaintiff through defendant No. 1 but the plaintiff came to know that defendant No. 1 had not paid some of their dues to the Coolies, whereupon he sent a registered letter to the first defendant asking him to make payment to the Coolies, but received no reply from the first defendant. It is then said that the plaintiff received information from the Labour Inspector, Hardwar, in December,1963 and July 1965, that defendant No. 1 had filed a suit for the recovery of Rs. 6,000/- which was contested by the plaintiff and the suit was dismissed but the first defendant then filed another suit in the court of the District Magistrate, Narendranagar, which was transferred to the court of Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Kirtinagar and was decreed for the recovery of Rs. 4,642.79 on 15th November 1965. It may be here pointed out that what have been referred to as suits in the plaint, were not regular suits. The nature of the first proceeding is not clear. The subsequent proceeding was under the Payment of Wages Act.

(2.) The suit was contested mainly on the ground that the jurisdiction of the authority under the Payment of Wages Act was exclusive, and the suit was barred.

(3.) The trial court dismissed the suit on the findings that the Payment of Wages Act applied to the work carried on by the plaintiff, and that the Sub- Divisional Magistrate, Kirtinagar, had jurisdiction to hear and decide the entire claim under the Payment of Wages Act, The lower appellate court has, however, decreed the suit on the findings that the work carried on by the plaintiff was not an industrial establishment and that the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Kirtinagar had no jurisdiction to make any award in respect of the work falling within the district of Pauri, and as the award was inseparable the whole of it must fail for having been given by an authority having no jurisdiction in the matter.