JIVANLAL KANDAS Vs. RAMTUJI BHAIJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS application arises out of darkhast proceedings. The petitioner obtained a decree for about Rs. 140 against the opponents, defendants Nos. 1 and 2, who are labourers in a textile mill at Ahmedabad, in the Court of Small Causes at Ahmedabad. Thereafter he filed a darkhast and applied for the attachment of the amounts of bonus for the year 1942 which the judgment-debtors were to receive sometime-in the beginning of 1943. Notices were issued to the judgment-debtors and they resisted the darkhast on the ground inter alia that the amounts sought to be attached were part of their wages and that under Section 60 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908, no part of their wages could be attached. THIS contention was upheld by the execution Court which dismissed the application. It held that the payment of bonus which the judgment-debtors were to receive must be deemed to be " by way of additional reward or remuneration to the employee for the labour rendered " by them and that, therefore, such bonus took the character of a part of their wages.

(2.) MR. Dhruva, on behalf of the plaintiff-applicant, has contended that the bonus should not be regarded as part of the wages of the judgment-debtors, because it was decided to grant such bonus in a lump as a measure of encouraging saving by the workmen, not being payable under any term of the original contract between the mills and their labourers, and that it can also be regarded as an amount paid in order to encourage more efficient work by the labourers.

(3.) WAGES is thus denned in Halsbury, Vol. XIV, at p. 650, paragraph 1227 : Any money or other thing had or contracted to be paid, delivered, or given as a recompense, reward, or remuneration for any labour done or to be done, whether within a certain time or to a certain amount, or for a time or an amount uncertain, is deemed to be the wages of such labour. This is a very wide definition, and it seems to me that there is no difficulty in holding that wages,' as so defined, would include the kind of bonus agreed to be paid by the Mill Owners' Association of Ahmedabad, whether it is viewed as a recompense or remuneration for the labour done or as a reward therefor. The fact that the bonus is given or distributed once a year would not seem to make any difference. A more restricted meaning is given in Wharton's Law Lexicon where wages is defined as a compensation agreed upon by a master to a servant, or any other person hired to do work or business for him. As I have already pointed out, the bonus in this case agreed to be paid by the Mill Owners' Association, though there was no contract with the; individual labourers, must be regarded as based on a contract in favour of each labourer and as binding on the said Association.