(1.) This is a petition for an appropriate writ or direction under Article 227 of the Constitution filed by the petitioner challenging the judgment and order dated 18th February 1961, dismissing the petitioner's application passed by the first responder's who is the appropriate authority under the Payment of Wages Act. The petitioner is a workman and employee of the second respondents who are an engineering company. The petitioner is employed in the factory of the second respondents, the second respondents being a public limited company. The working hours of the petitioner as also of the other employees of the second respondent working in the factory of the second respondents are governed by the Indian Factories Act, 1948, Under theFactories Act the ordinary working hours at all relevant times were nine hours per day and forty-eight hours per week. The petitioner and the other employes of the second respondents being dissatisfied with the rates of wages and dearness allowance and certain other conditions of employment made certain demands upon the second respondents on the 21st April 1957. The said demands being collective demands were treated as an industrial dispute and were referred by the then Government of Bombay to an Industrial Tribunal for adjudication under section 10(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The Industrial Tribunal made its award on or about 5th February 1959 and the said award was published in the Bombay Government Gazette on th 19th March 1959.
(2.) Only two of the demands which were the subject-matter of the said adjudication are relevant in this case. The first demand was for fixing certain grades for the monthly paid staff of certain categories of the second respondents. That demand really was for an increase I the rates of basic wages of the members of the staff falling in those categories. It was demanded that the daid increased rates should be effective from 1st January 1957. The second of the said demands was for an increased rate of dearness allowance payable to the workmen of the second respondents. By the said award certain increased rates of payment of basic wages in respect of some of the workmen of the said categories of staff mentioned in the first demnd were granted. The award also granted certain higher rates of dearness allowance. By paragraph 38 of the award it was further directed that arrears of pay and dearness allowance shall be paid with retrospective effect from 1st April 1958, within the period mentioned in that paragraph. It is therefore, clear that the award which is dated 5th February 1959, and which became effective from the expiry of a month thereafter was given retrospective effect as from 1st April 1958.
(3.) The second respondents have implemented the said award. There is no dispute that the second respondents are paying basic wages and dearness allowance as directed by the said award since the date of the said award. Even as regards the retrospective payment odered by the said award the petitioner as also the other workmen have been paid basic wages and dearness allowance directed by the said award. There is however, only one dispute between the second respondents and the petitioner as slso some other workmen, with whom we are not concerned directly in this petition, and that is that according to the petitioner, he is entitled to receive payment of wages for overtime, i.e., for the work done by the petitioner in excess of the ordinary working hours at rate computed on the basis of the said higher rates of basic wages fixed by the award as frim 1st April 1958. It is common ground that after the date fo the award the second respondents are paying even for overtime on the basis of the said higher rates of basic wages. The second respondents, however, deny that they are liable to pay for overtime for the period prior to the said award at the increased rates of basic wages.