VALAJIBHAI AVCHARBHAI Vs. CHIMANLAL HEMRAJ JOSHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners are employees of an establishment belonging to the first respondent known as 'chandra-Vilas Hindu Hotel' at Ahmedabad. The first respondent is the person responsible for payment of wages to the petitioners. The petitioners applied by Application No. 849 of 1955 to the Payment of Wages Authority, Ahmedabad, for an order for payment of overtime wages. It was the case of the petitioners that the establishment of the first respondent was 'a factory' within the meaning of the Indian Factories Act, 1948, and that the petitioners worked every day for periods longer than the maximum periods prescribed under the Factories Act and by virtue of Section 59 of that Act the petitioners were entitled to overtime wages. The petitioners accordingly claimed overtime wages for the period from 1st December 1954 to 1st November 1955. This application was resisted by the first respondent. He contended inter alia that the Payment of Wages Authority had no jurisdiction to hear the application, that it was barred by the law of limitation, that Chandra Vilas Hindu Hotel was not a factory but it was a restaurant as defined in the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act, 1948, and that it was registered and licenced as such by the Government of Bombay and the Municipal authorities, and that the Authority had no jurisdiction to decide the question whether the establishment of the first respondent was a factory or was a restaurant. The Authority held that the question raised in the application did not relate to the determination of the terms of the contract between the parties, but the application raised a complicated Question of law whether the establishment was governed by the Factories Act or by the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act. The Authority observed that since the Payment of Wages Act provided a summary remedy to workmen for an order for recovery of wages due to them, the Authority under that Act "was not supposed to determine complicated questions of law or decide question about the status of the workmen". The Authority accordingly directed that the petitioners may get a declaration of their status from a competent Court or Authority and thereafter make a claim before him. On the view taken by him the Authority dismissed the application. This application under Art. 227 of the Constitution has been filed against the order passed by the Payment of Wages Authority.

(2.) SUB-SECTION (1) of Section 15 of Payment of Wages Act authorises the State Government to appoint an Authority to hear and decide for any specified area all claims arising out of deductions from the wages, or delay in payment of the wages of persons employed or paid in that area. By Sub-section (2) an employee is entitled to apply to the Authority for a direction for payment of wages unlawfully deducted or delayed. 'wages' are defined in Section 2 (vi) of the Act as meaning

(3.) MR. Patel also urged that the petitioners were not claiming wages due to them but were claiming potential wages and that the Authority had no jurisdiction to entertain an application for potential wages, and reliance in support of that contention was placed on the judgment of their Lordships of the Supreme Court in D'costa v. Patel, 57 Born LR 738: ( (S) AIR 1955 SC 412) (B ). In our view, the petitioners have not claimed potential wages; they have claimed wages to which they are entitled as employees of the first respondent. D'costa's case (B), has therefore no application to the facts of the present case.