AMBIKA TOBACCO COMPANY GONDIA Vs. LABOUR COURT NAGPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner-company deals in bidis. It supplied raw material to independent contractors and obtained katcha bidis prepared and rolled by workers employed by such independent contractors. Respondents 2 to 48 who are 47 in number, collectively, on the other hand, claim to be employees for bidi-rolling work, employed by the petitioner-company. These several respondents filed an application before respondent 1, which is a labour court at Nagpur, complaining that they had not been paid at the minimum rate of wages fixed by the State Government for workers in bidi industry, under a notification dated 14 June, 1958, which came into force from 1 July, 1958. The respondent-workers claimed the difference between the wages actually paid and the wages payable at the minimum rate of wages fixed under the Minimum Wages Act by the State Government for the period from 1 May, 1959 to 15 December, 1961. The applications were filed on or about 10 April, 1964.

(2.) The petitioner-company, which was noticed in each application, contested the claim of the respondent-workers on several grounds. It denied that there existed a relationship of employer and employee between the petitioner on the one hand and the worker-respondents on the other. Its case was that the respondents, if at all, were the employees of one Budharam who was an independent contractor, having undertaken to supply katcha bidis to the petitioner under three contracts. The petitioner further disputed the jurisdiction of the labour court at Nagpur as constituted by the Governments to entertain the claim of the respondents under S. 33C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. Hereafter this Act will be referred to as the Act. It was further contended that if the claim was for payment of minimum wages, the authority contemplated under the Minimum Wages Act would be the forum which has exclusive jurisdiction to entertain claims under that Act, and the labour court would not have jurisdiction to entertain such a claim. It also disputed the jurisdiction of the labour court to determine the nature of relationship alleged to be subsisting between the petitioner and the respondents, namely, that of an employer and the employees, and also challenges in this Court now the correctness of the finding recorded by the labour court in that respect.

(3.) As to the merits of the claim the petitioner contended that what was claimed by the respondent-workers was not a benefit which alone could be claimed under Sub-section (2) of S. 33C of the Act, nor was it a benefit, which is capable of computation in terms of money. What is claimed was wages simpliciter, and in case of such a claim for wages there is no question of computing it in terms of money because it was money that itself is claimed and such a claim was not within contemplation on proper construction of Sub-section (1) of S. 33C of the Act. Lastly, it was claimed now in this Court that the labour court had no jurisdiction to award costs as it has done, namely, at the rate of Rs. 5 per applicant-worker.