AMBIKA NATH Vs. CHHEDI NATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision under Section 25, Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, by the defendant against whom a decree has been given for Rs. 77 odd on foot of a pronote dated 17 June 1935 for Rs. 42. The rate of interest given in the pro-note is Rs. 2 per cent., per mensem but the plaintiff's claim was based on a reduced rate of Re. 1-4-0 per cent., per mensem. The defendant took a number of pleas in regard to the execution of the pronote and he further pleaded that he was a workman and therefore entitled to the benefits of Section 9, U. P. Debt Redemption Act. The learned Judge of the Small Cause Court found that the pronote was duly executed by the defendant and upon the plea that the defendant was a workman as contemplated by Section 2, Clause (20)(a), Debt Redemption Act, he held in the following terms: "I do not think that a compositor working in a press would be a workman in the city of Allahabad." Learned Counsel for the applicant has pointed out that in Clause (20)(a), Debt Redemption Act, workman is defined as a person who earned wages within the meaning of Sub-section (6) of Section 2, Payment of Wages Act, 1936, within the twelve months preceding the first day of June 1940, which did not exceed Rs. 600 in the said twelve months and did not exceed Rs. 60 in any such months.

(2.) The Payment of Wages Act, (Indian Act, 4 of 1936), Section 1(4) applies in the first instance to the payment of wages to persons employed in any factory, etc., etc. Clause (5) of the same Act provides that: The Local Government may, after giving three months notice of its intention of so doing by notification in the local official Gazette, extend the provisions of the Act or any of them to the payment of wages to any class of persons employed in any industrial establishment or in any class or group of industrial establishments.

(3.) It appears that by industries Department Notification No. 954/XVIII-889, dated 24 March 1939, the United Provinces Government extended the provisions of the Payment of Wages Act to all printing presses in the United Provinces wherein or within the precincts of which ten or more workers are working or were working on any day of the preceding twelve months. The effect of this notification is that a compositor working in a press in Allahabad is quite evidently a potential workman, provided that he would have also to prove that the press in which he was working was one to which this notification would have been applicable and he could further prove that he had earned wages as defined in Sub-section (6) of Section 2, Payment of Wages Act, within the limits prescribed by Clause (20)(a) of Section 2, Debt Redemption Act. The learned Judge of the Small Cause Court was clearly wrong in his very general statement that a compositor working in a press in the city of Allahabad could not be a workman. Be that as it may, it is equally clear upon the record that the defendant-applicant did not discharge the burden of proof which lay upon him to establish those other facts upon the proof of which only he could have been held to be a workman and the learned Judge rightly declined to hold that he was a person who could obtain the benefit of the provisions of the Debt Redemption Act. It follow's that, subject to the remarks which at the request of counsel I have made above with the idea of clarifying the situation, there is no force in the present application which therefore fails and is dismissed with costs.