KEWALRAM GHANA SHYAMDAS Vs. RAM MANOHARDAS KALYANDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE facts in this case are briefly these. On 28th December 1956 the respondent made an application to the Authority appointed under the Payment of Wages Act for recovering wages for the period August 1953 to December 1955, which according to him had not been paid to him by the petitioner. Under the first proviso to sub-section (2) of section 15 of the Act the application has to be made to the authority within one year from the date on which the payment of wages was due to be made. The second proviso permits an application to be made after the period of one year when the applicant satisfied the authority that he had sufficient cause for not making the application within such period. The authority refused to condone the delay in making the application for the period prior to December 1955. The authority directed the petitioners to pay to the respondent his wages for the month of December 1955, leave wages and notice pay. The respondent did not appeal against this order. On 2nd January 1958 the respondent filed a suit in the Court of Small Causes, Bombay for recovering the wages alleged to have been due to him for the period from 1-12-1954 to 30-11-1955. The applicant denied the respondent's claim. They also contended that the Small Cause Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the suit by reason of section 22 of the Payment of Wages Act. This contention was accepted by the trial Judge and the suit was dismissed. An application was then made to a Bench of the Small Cause Court under section 38 of the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act. Relying on the observation made in Special Civil Appl No. 879 of 1956 (Bom), the Bench of that Court held that the suit filed by the respondent was maintainable. The decree passed by the trial Court dismissing the suit was therefore set aside and the suit was remanded to the trial Court. Thereafter the petitioners filed the present Civil Revision Application, in which it has been contended that the view taken by the Bench of the Court of Small Causes is erroneous. This Civil Revision Application came up for hearing before a Division Bench of this Court, which decided to refer it to a Full Bench.

(2.) THE question which arises for consideration by the Full Bench is as under :

(3.) SUB-SECTION (1) of section 17 provides for an appeal against an order made by the authority. Sub-section (2) of this section states that save as provided in sub-section (1), any order dismissing either wholly or in part an application made under sub-section (2) of S. 15, - or a direction made under sub-section (3) or sub-section (4) of that section shall be final. This provision therefore gives finality to the order made by the authority under section 15, unless it is set aside or modified in appeal under section 17. Section 22 is in the following terms.