LAL AND CO Vs. KULKARNI R N

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been filed under Art, 227 of the Constitution of India to challenge the correctness of an interim order passed by the first labour court at Bombay in an application under S. 33C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The petitioner is a partnership firm which carries on business in cloth and tailoring in Bombay. Respondents 2 to 17 are garment-stitchers working with the petitioner. On 15 March, 1966, respondents 2 to 17 applied to the first labour court at Bombay (respondent 1) under S. 33C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, for the computation and recovery of wages for weekly holidays during the period from 1 February, 1963 to 31 December, 1985. Respondents 2 to 17 stated in their application that provisions of the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act, 1968, were made applicable to them with effect from 1 February, 1963 by a notification issued by the State Government under S. 5(1) of the said Act and that they were entitled under S. 18(3) of the said Act to receive wages for weekly holidays. Preliminary objections to the maintainability of this application were raised by the petitioner before the labour court. The petitioner contended, in the first place, that wages for weekly holidays payable under S. 18(3) of the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act were recoverable as wages under the Payment of Wages Act of 1936, that under S. 22(d) of the Payment of Wages Act, the authority under that Act was the tribunal of exclusive jurisdiction for the recovery of wages, and that an application for the same purpose to the labour court under S. 33C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act was not maintainable. The petitioner further contended that wages for weekly holidays were not a "benefit" computable in terms of money, and that an application under S. 33C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act was not, therefore, a proper remedy for the recovery of such wages. It was lastly urged by the petitioner that the claim in respect of wages for weekly holidays fell within the scope of S. 33C(1) of the Industrial Disputes Act and the claim was therefore subject to the period of limitation of one year laid down in S. 33C(1).

(2.) These contentions were negatived by the labour court by an interim order, and this order has been challenged in the present petition.

(3.) In its interim order the labour court has observed that wages for weakly holidays allowed by S. 18(3) of the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act were not "wages" within the definition of that in the Payment of Wages Act. This view of the labour court appears to us to be clearly wrong. The main part of the definition of "wages" in S. 2(vi) of the Payment of Wages Act defines the term to mean "all remuneration whether by way of salary, allowances or otherwise expressed in terms of money capable of being so expressed which would, if the terms of employment, express or implied, were fulfilled, be payable to a person employed in respect of his employment or of work done in such employment."