THE STEEL AND GENERAL MILLS COMPANY LTD. NEW INDUSTRIAL AREA, SONEPAT, DISTRICT ROHTAK Vs. THE ADDITIONAL DISTRICT JUDGE, ROHTAK, AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner -company is running an industrial establishment at Sonepat which is a factory registered under the Factories Act, 1948. The petitioner -company manufactures grinding wheel and has never employed 50 or more than 50 workmen in its factory. Respondent 3 to 7 were in the employment of the petitioner company drawing less than Rs. 400.00 per month as their wages. They were laid off for different periods during the years 1965, 1967 and 1968 and were not provided any work for the periods of layoff. The petitioner -company refused to make any payment of wages to those respondents for the periods of lay -off and so they filed an application under Section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (hereinafter called the Act, to the Authority under the Act for a direction to the petitioner -company to pay the wages to them for the periods of layoff. This application was heard and decided by Shri M.K. Jain, Labour -cum -Conciliation Officer who had been appointed Commissioner under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923. The said Authority passed its order on August 5, 1968, directing the petitioner -company to pay the wages for the periods of lay -off to the workmen -respondents and two other workmen, who had made the application, but the order in their favour has not been contested in this petition because they have not been made respondents. Against this order, the petitioner company filed an appeal which was dismissed by the learned Additional District Judge, Rohtak, on March 2, 1970. The present petition has been directed against the orders dated August 5, 1968 and March 2, 1970, passed by the original authority and the appellate authority under the Act. The petition has been contested by respondents 3 to 7 although they have not filed any return.

(2.) THE first submission made by the learned counsel for the petitioner is that Shri M.K. Jain, who heard the application of the workmen -respondents under Section 15 of the Act, was not competent to be appointed an authority to hear the application under the Act because he was only a Law Graduate and did not possess the experience of a Civil Judge or a stipendiary Magistrate which is according to the Learned Counsel, an essential qualification. In support of this submission, reliance is placed on Section 15(i) of the Act, reading as under

(3.) THE learned counsel for the petitioner has however, relied on the judgment of Bishan Narain, J, in J.R. Rolling Mills, v. The Punjab State and others. C.W. 540 of 1956, (C.W. 540 of 1956. decided on August 23, 1958), wherein the learned Judge held that Chapter VA of the Industrial Disputes Act does not apply to an industrial establishment wherein less than 50 workmen were employed and that the industrial Tribunal had no jurisdiction to travel beyond the provisions of that Chapter. The learned Judge, therefore, concluded that under the Act no compensation could have been awarded to the workmen against the management because Section 25 -C did not apply to the establishment in that case. The matter was not debated in that petition as to whether an industrial employer has the right to lay -off his workmen even if no provision is made for that purpose in the Standing Orders or any other statutory provision or rules or in the contract of service between the employer and the employee and, therefore, it cannot be taken as a judgment covering the present point under determination.