JERRY SABASTIEN PAREIRA Vs. BADSHAH A A

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is a worker employed by Messrs. Richardson & Cruddas, Ltd., who are hereinafter referred to as the employers. The petitioner applied before the authority under the Payment of Wages Act for Bombay area, praying for an order for payment of delayed wages and for compensation alleging that for the wage period 25 June, 1956 and 15 August, 1956, wages due to him had not been paid by the employers. The petitioner submitted that although he was ready and willing to work from 25 June, 1956 to 14 August, 1956 he had been prevented by the employers and was lockedout on the plea that he had gone an illegal strike; that the lockout was unjust, improper and illegal, being declared during the pendency of proceeding before the industrial tribunal in Reference No. 127 of 1954, in which the petitioner was concerned, and that even after the declaration of the said lockout, the petitioner through his trade union, informed the employers that he and other workers were ready and willing to work and called upon the employers to lift the lockout, but the employers ignored the same and refused to lift the lock-out, and accordingly the continuation of the lockout was "manifestly illegal" and in contravention of the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The petitioner, therefore, claimed that he was prevented from working by the employers and the latter were liable to pay wages due to him for the entire period of the lockout, or in any case, for the period subsequent to the representation made by the trade union for the said lockout. This application was resisted by the employers. They contended inter alia that the payment of wages authority had no jurisdiction to make a direction in the matter as the question of payment of wages depended on whether the strike or the lock-out was illegal and that question could not be decided by the authority, the question being one relating to or arising out of an industrial dispute within the meaning of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. On the merits also the employers resisted the claim made by the petitioner.

(2.) The authority under the Payment of Wages Act tried the question of jurisdiction which was raised by the employer as a preliminary issue. The authority observed that the principal question in the application before him was not about the 'wages' of the petitioner, but was about the legality or the illegality of the strike and the lockout, and the petitioner "wanted to succeed on the finding that the lockout was illegal, " and as the question was about the legality of the strike and the consequent lockout the authority had no jurisdiction to hear and decide the petition. Against the order passed by the payment of wages authority, this application under Art. 226 and 227 of the Constitution has been filed.

(3.) We are, in this case, not concerned whether on the merits the petitioner is entitled to the wages claimed by him. The only question which falls to be determined is one of jurisdiction and of the authority to entertain the application of the petitioner. Under the Payment of Wages Act, by Sub-section (4) of S. 1, it is provided that it applies in the first instance to payment of wages to persons employed in any factory and to persons employed (otherwise than in a factory) upon any railway by a railway administration, or, either directly or through a sub-contractor by a person fulfilling a contract with a railway administration. By S. 15, the Provincial Government is invested with the power to constitute a payment of wages 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. The decision of the authority is made appeallable by S. 17. By S. 18 it is provided that every authority appointed under Sub-section (1) of S. 15 shall have all the powers of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, for the purpose of taking evidence and of enforcing the attendance of witnesses and compelling the production of documents, and every such authority shall be deemed to be a civil court for all the purposes of S. 195 and of Chap. XXXV of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898. Section 19 provides for the enforcement of the orders passed by the authority and S. 22 prohibits a civil court from entertaining any suit for the recovery of wages or of any deduction from wages so far as the claim forms the subject of an an application under S. 15 which has been presented by the plaintiff and which is pending before the authority appointed under that section or of an appeal under S. 17; or which has formed the subject of direction under S. 15 in favour of the plaintiff; or which has been adjudged, in any proceeding under S. 15, not to be owed to the plaintiff; or could have been recovered by an application under S. 15. By these provisions, exclusive jurisdiction is conferred upon the payment of wages authority, in matters specified in S. 22. But the authority is a tribunal with limited jurisdiction. These limitations placed upon the jurisdiction of the authority are of a four-fold character, relating -