BASANTA KUMAR NANDA Vs. GOVINDA PRASAD ACHARYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Petitioner is the Appellant under Section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act, (Act IV of 1936), hereinafter to be referred to as the Central Act. He is a registered medical practitioner and was employed in Govinda Aushadhalaya, belonging to the opposite party, from 29 -3 -1957 to 19 -9 -1958 and from 1 -10 -1958 to 30 -11 -1958 to attend to the patients, to examine them, to prescribe medicine for them, to supervise sales of allopathy medicines and also to work as a consulting physician for his shop. The opposite party employed the Petitioner on a monthly salary Rs. 150/ - for a period of one year and 8 months. The Applicant was not paid his pay. The opposite party is liable to compensation from 1 -12 -1958 to 28 -2 -1959 for Rs. 450/ -. The Petitioner therefore claims Rs. 3450/ - in all.

(2.) THE opposite party stated in his written statement that the Petitioner was never employed as an employee under him, nor he wholly or principally employed the Petitioner. The Petitioner approached the opposite party with the proposal that he would see to the patients coming to the opposite -party's shop for allopathic treatment to taking fees from them and that his prescriptions, given to who patients, would he served in the opposite party's pharmacy. The opposite party accepted this proposal and allowed the Petitioner to sit for an hour or two every day in the shop according to the Petitioner's convenience.

(3.) THE learned Additional District Judge confirmed all the findings of fact arrived at by the trial authority. He further held that, in view of the stand taken by the opposite party that there was no relationship of employer or employee, the trial authority had no jurisdiction to go into the matter and the application was not maintainable, and that the claim of the Petitioner, even if entertainable, was barred by limitation for the period prior to 25 -8 -1958 as the application was filed on 25 -2 -1959.