IN RE: POLISETTI LAKSHMAYYA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) One Polisetti Lakshmayya is the petitioner in all these three revision cases arising out of three calendar cases and in each of them he has been convicted of an offence under Section 18(1), read with Section 22(2) of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, and Rules 21(4) and 22 of the Minimum Wages (Central) Rules, 1950, and in each of the cases he has been sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 50. A common question of law arises in all these three cases and they will all be disposed of by one order.

(2.) The gravamen of the charge against the petitioner was that he was working stone quarries at Katheru in Rajahmundry; that he had to conform to the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act and the Minimum Wages Rules framed thereunder; that he had failed to maintain the registers as prescribed by the Act and the rules and he was therefore liable to be punished under Section 22(2) of the Act. The case for the prosecution was that the petitioner was an employer and that he had employed a number of employees to work the quarries.

(3.) The plea of the petitioner was that he was not working the quarries himself but was giving them on contract basis to contractors, who in their turn employed workmen to operate the quarries. In support of his plea he examined a number of persons who claimed to be contractors and who stated that they were working the quarries by employing members of their own families. The Court below has believed the defence evidence and found that the work was being done by contractors and not by the petitioner directly. It has nevertheless come to the conclusion that the contractors are "employees" and the petitioner is an "employer" within the meaning of those terms in the Act and that the petitioner was therefore bound to conform to the provisions of the Act and the rules framed thereunder.