MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, PATIALA THROUGH ITS COMMISSIONER Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER, LABOUR COURT, PATIALA & ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question, whether extra pay for working during weekends on Saturdays, is generally a matter of agreement between the employers and their employees in private law. The position in public service with public law element is vastly different dependant on statutory rules, instructions issued under Article 162 of the Constitution or on bye-laws and regulations of local bodies and agencies of State governing the subject.

(2.) The right vigorously claimed and hotly disputed at the same time in this batch of 476 cases* is pro and contra for payment of wages for working on Saturdays. The right if enforceable by computation of money under Section 33C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 [for short the "Act"] has to be operated as per the settled law since the five Judge Bench of the Supreme Court ruled in the celebrated case titled Central Bank of India Ltd v. P.S.Rajagopalan, AIR 1964 SC 743, defining the scope and amplitude of Section 33C(2) of the Act. The sine qua non of which power is the existence of a right to receive money due from an employer in denial mode which is due and capable of being computed in terms on money, which right is apparently free of doubt, clear, categorical and free from any long-winded forensic debate at the Bar. Also it is a duly documented claim which has been wrongfully denied by the employer in order to enable Labour Court to exercise its jurisdiction to declare and execute the right by computation in terms of money, as in execution proceedings from a decree, and hold unflinchingly in favour of the claimants of rights already established. This is unlike the respondent workers in many of these petitions, who are employed by the municipalities in Punjab etc. to work in the field in capacities of "workmen" while holding permanent jobs as members of the Field Staff as differentiated from Office Staff in the same organization/s. One set comprising cadres of manual, skilled and technical workers while the other in sedentary office jobs. If cadres are separate in strength and the arrangements make no allowance for rotational transfers and postings from one to the other group, then the legal solution is simple in determination of the dispute, which is to go by the number of working days in a week required by rules of bye-laws to be served, viz., 5 days or 6 with Sunday off. If the staff is interchangeable from field to office or vice versa then the equality principle will apply and payments for working an extra day beyond five day week enjoyed in offices as held in Municipal Employees Union (Regd.), Sirhind and others v. State of Punjab and others, (2000) 9 SCC 432 (for short 'Sirhind' case). This judgment formed the sheet anchor of the claim for compensatory wages for working on Saturdays before the Labour Court and presently before this Court as well.

(3.) A large number of petitions have been filed by various Municipal Councils/Corporations and by the State of Punjab or against it/them, challenging the impugned orders passed by the Ld. Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Patiala and other Labour Courts under Section 33C(2) of Act vide which the Presiding Officers have accepted the applications and directed the petitioners-municipalities-corporations to make good compensatory payments to the Field employees for working on Saturdays in view of the judgment delivered by the Supreme Court in case of Octroi employees, the Court confronted by a freak situation arising out of Punjab Government policy setting up Octroi tax posts on the State and National highways to collect revenue when faced with an acute shortage of independent manpower to meet the demands. That was a device never to be repeated till policy changed and the system was abandoned. These cases involve "workmen" employed in the departments of the State of Punjab, local bodies such as Municipal Committees and Corporations and the Punjab Mandi Board.