Citation Codes

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Case Number

Writ P. No. 333 of 1954.

Attorney(S)

Messrs. K.C Jacob and S.K.L Ratan for the Petr.
Mr. S. Mohan Kumaramangalam for Mr. K.V Sunkaran and the Special Government Pleader for the Respts.

Judges

Rajagopalan, J.

Acts

S. 20 of the Minimum Wages Act (Act XI of 1948) hereinafter referred
S. 5 of the Limitation Act.

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Smart Summary

Concise Analytical Summary of the Opinion

Factual and Procedural Background

This is an application under Article 226 of the Constitution seeking certiorari to set aside the order of the Industrial Tribunal, Madurai, dated 11 November 1953, which was passed under S. 20 of the Minimum Wages Act (Act XI of 1948). The petitioner operates a public motor transport service. The Industrial Tribunal found that the first respondent was employed by the petitioner as a bus conductor between 7 November 1951 and 4 March 1953.

A government notification dated 28 March 1952 (issued under S. 3(1)(a)(i) and S. 5 of the Act) fixed the minimum wages for a bus conductor at Rs. 30 plus a clearing allowance of Rs. 10 per month. On 30 June 1953 the first respondent applied to the Industrial Tribunal (the authority appointed under S. 20(1) of the Act) claiming Rs. 3,168 in total: Rs. 288 as the balance of wages due and Rs. 2,880 as compensation (ten times the shortfall). The Tribunal dismissed the compensation claim but awarded the first respondent Rs. 306-4-0 as the difference between the minimum wages found payable between 1 April 1952 and 4 March 1953 (at Rs. 49 per month, according to the Tribunal's calculation) and the amount actually paid by the petitioner.

The petitioner challenged the Tribunal's jurisdiction to award amounts for periods earlier than six months preceding the presentation of the claim (i.e., earlier than 30 December 1952), seeking judicial review by certiorari.

Legal Issues Presented

Whether the Industrial Tribunal had jurisdiction under S. 20(2) of the Minimum Wages Act to award arrears for periods earlier than the six months preceding the presentation of the application (30 June 1953).
How the phrase "date on which the minimum wages became payable" in the first proviso to S. 20(2) should be interpreted — whether it is a single calendar date (1 April 1952) or is to be determined with reference to the date wages became payable to the individual employee under his contract.
Whether the Tribunal could, under the second proviso to S. 20(2), investigate and award wages for a period antecedent to the six-month limitation if the applicant satisfied the Tribunal that he had "sufficient cause" for delay in presenting the application.
Whether there was any requirement (statutory or by rule) for a written application to invoke the second proviso (i.e., to have delay condoned), and whether the Tribunal could condone delay after admitting the application.

Arguments of the Parties

Petitioner's Arguments

The Tribunal had no jurisdiction to award any amount beyond what accrued to the first respondent as minimum wages during the six months that preceded the presentation of his claim on 30 June 1953; since the first respondent left service on 4 March 1953, the petitioner argued the claim should have been limited to the period 30 December 1952 to 4 March 1953.
The petitioner contended that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to condone delay in the absence of any written application by the first respondent to invoke the second proviso to S. 20(2).
The petitioner argued that the Tribunal purported to condone delay only on 11 November 1953 (when it issued directions), and therefore had no jurisdiction to investigate periods earlier than the six months — asserting that satisfaction under the second proviso must have been reached before admission of the application.
At a later stage the petitioner pleaded that the claim was belated and time-barred (an allegation raised in a counter statement filed on 29 October 1953).

First Respondent's Arguments

The first respondent's application sought arrears and compensation; the application itself was not precise about limitation to six months and implied he might still have been in service (it did not state explicitly that he left on 4 March 1953).
The first respondent argued that the petitioner had treated his claim as one for the period from 1 April 1952 and therefore the Tribunal was entitled to interpret the application as covering that period.
The first respondent contended that the Tribunal must be deemed to have condoned delay on presentation and that it was not necessary to file a separate written application to invoke the second proviso; the Tribunal may act suo motu in excusing delay.

Table of Precedents Cited

Precedent	Rule or Principle Cited For	Application by the Court
Dinabandhu Sahu v. Mangaraj (Supreme Court)	Authority under an analogous provision may act suo motu in excusing delay; there is no statutory requirement (in that provision) that notice should be issued to the opposite side before condoning delay.	The court relied on this precedent to reject the petitioner's contention that a written application (or a formal procedural step) was required before the Tribunal could condone delay under the second proviso to S. 20(2). The court held that the Tribunal could act without a separate written application and that excusing delay is a matter for the Tribunal's satisfaction.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court proceeded by addressing the key interpretive and procedural contentions in turn, adhering closely to the statutory text of S. 20(2) and its provisos and to the facts recorded before the Tribunal.

1. Construction of the first respondent's application: The court considered whether the application could reasonably be treated as a claim for wages from 1 April 1952 to 4 March 1953. Although the precise arithmetic basis for the figure Rs. 288 in the application was not explained by the first respondent, the court found that there was material on the record to permit the Tribunal to treat the application as a claim for the period of the first respondent's service from 1 April 1952 to 4 March 1953. The absence of an explicit allegation in the application that the first respondent's services had been terminated did not preclude such an interpretation.

2. Interpretation of "date on which the minimum wages became payable": The court rejected a narrowly literal reading that the only relevant date was the calendar date of 1 April 1952 (the date from which minimum wages were generally payable pursuant to the notification). It held instead that the relevant "date from which minimum wages became payable" for the purpose of the first proviso to S. 20(2) must be understood with reference to the dates on which wages became payable to the individual employee under the contract of service. Thus an employee's right to claim wages that became payable on a given date must be asserted within six months of that date.

3. Scope and operation of the second proviso to S. 20(2): The court noted that the second proviso expressly permits the authority (the Tribunal) to admit an application after the six-month period if the applicant satisfies the Tribunal that he had sufficient cause for delay. The Tribunal recorded the first respondent's explanation for delay — that he had been informed he could file within six months from removal from service — and explicitly excused the delay. The court held that neither the Act nor the rules required a separate written application to obtain the benefit of the second proviso, and that the Tribunal could act suo motu in excusing delay. The court relied on the Supreme Court's authority (Dinabandhu Sahu v. Mangaraj) for this proposition.

4. Timing of the Tribunal's satisfaction: The court examined whether satisfaction under the second proviso had to be reached before "admission" of the application. The statute and the rules did not define precisely what constituted "admission" or whether "entertaining" an application (language in S. 20(3)) is a later stage. The court accepted that admission is antecedent to the issue of notices and the substantive enquiry. In the present case the explanation for delay was offered on 28 October 1953; the Tribunal's recorded satisfaction appeared in its order dated 11 November 1953. The court concluded that, at best, the Tribunal must be deemed to have been satisfied on or about 28 October 1953 (even if formally recorded on 11 November 1953).

5. Discretion to grant certiorari despite a jurisdictional-fact question: The petitioner argued the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to investigate earlier periods because no satisfaction under the second proviso existed at the time of admission. The court observed procedural realities: the petitioner had not raised the limitation objection until after the enquiry and had not made it an issue in the Tribunal. On the merits the court found that substantial justice had been done between the parties. Even if the Tribunal's decision on the factual question underpinning its jurisdiction could be characterized as erroneous, the court exercised its discretionary power not to grant certiorari in the circumstances. The court weighed the lateness of the petitioner's objection and the absence of prejudice warranting intervention.

Holding and Implications

Holding: The petition for a writ of certiorari is dismissed.

Implications:

The Industrial Tribunal's order dated 11 November 1953 stands; the award in favour of the first respondent (payment of arrears, and dismissal of the compensation claim) is not set aside by this court.
The court refused to require a separate written application as a precondition to condoning delay under the second proviso to S. 20(2) and accepted that the Tribunal may act upon the applicant's explanation and can satisfy itself suo motu as to sufficiency of cause for delay.
The court emphasized that the operative date for the six-month limiting period in the first proviso must be understood with reference to the date on which wages became payable to the particular employee under his contract, not solely by reference to a single calendar date in the notification; wages becoming payable on a given date must be claimed within six months of that date unless delay is satisfactorily explained under the second proviso.
No broader legal precedent was announced beyond the interpretive findings applied to the facts: the direct effect is that the Tribunal's factual determination and its exercise of discretion to condone delay were upheld in these circumstances. The petition was dismissed without costs.

Note: This summary is based exclusively on the content of the opinion provided and does not add facts or inferences beyond what the opinion itself states.

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K. Ramaswamy Doss, Proprietor, K. Sri Balasubramiam Motor Service, Kovilpatti v. A. Rama Pillai And Another.

This is an application under Art. 226 of the Constitution for the issue of a writ of certiorari to set aside the order of the Industrial Tribunal, Modurai, dated 11th November 1953 passed under S. 20 of the Minimum Wages Act (Act XI of 1948) hereinafter referred to as the Act.

The petitioner carries on a public motor transport service. Employment in public motor transport is item 11 of Part 1 of the schedule to the Act. The tribunal found that the first respondent was in the employ of the petitioner as a bus conductor between 7th November 1951 and 4th March 1953. The notification prescribed by S. 3(1)(a)(i) and S. 5 of the Act was issued by the Government of Madras, the appropriate Government, on 28th March 1952, fixing the minimum wages payable under the Act to a bus conductor at Rs. 30 plus clearness allowance of Rs. 10 a month.

On 30th June 1953 the first respondent applied to the Industrial Tribunal as the authority appointed under S. 20, Cl. 1 of the Act claiming in all a sum of Rs. 3,168 claimed Rs 288 as the balance of wages due to him under the Act and he claimed ten times that amount, Rs. 2,880 as compensation for the non-payment of the wages. The Tribunal dismissed his claim for compensation. It held that the first respondent was entitled to a sum of Rs. 306-4-0 which, the Tribunal held, constituted the difference between the minimum wages payable to the first respondent between 1st April 1952 and 4th March 1953 at Rs. 49 a month, and the amount actually paid to him during that period by the petitioner as wages.

The petitioner contended that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to award the first respondent anything more than what had accrued to him as minimum wages during the six months that preceded the presentation of the claim on 30th June 1953. Since the first respondent admittedly left the services of the petitioner on 4th March 1953 the claim, it was contended, should have been limited to the period between 30th December 1952 and 4th March 1953.

S. 20(2) of the Act runs:

“Where an employee is paid less than the minimum rates of wages fixed for his class of work under this Act the employee himself………may apply to such authority for a direction under Sub-S. 3, provided that every such application shall be presented within six months from the date on which the minimum wages became payable, provided further that any application may be admitted after the said period of six months when the applicant satisfies the authority that he had sufficient cause for not making the application within such period.”

Sub-Cl. 3 of. S. 20 provided for the directions to be issued by the authority in this case, the Tribunal.

Learned Counsel for the petitioner urged that all that the first respondent himself claimed in his application dated 30th June 1953 was what was due to him under the Act for the period of six months that preceded 30th June 1953. The Tribunal treated it as a claim for the period between 1st April 1952, when the minimum wages fixed under the provisions of the Act first became payables and 4th March 1953, when the first respondent left the services of the petitioner. The question now is not how I should construe the application of the first respondent, but whether it furnished no basis at all for the Tribunal to hold it was a claim for the period between 1st April 1952 and 4th March 1953. It was no doubt not easy to explain how the first respondent arrived at the figure of Rs. 288 which he obviously claimed as arrears of wages. There was nothing in the order of the Tribunal to show that the first respondent did offer to explain. The interpretation placed by the learned Counsel for the petitioner was that Rs. 288 was arrived at by multiplying 54 the minimum wages payable for the period for which the claim was made six time and deducting Rs. 36 which the first respondent admitted was all that had been paid to him during the six months that preceded 30th June 1953. Learned Counsel for the first respondent contended that if it was really a case of a claim for 16 months at Rs. 18 a month if the period was from April 1952 and June 1953, a claim based on that calculation, breaks down. It is not a question of arithmetical calculation now Rs. 288 was, as pointed out before, not explained. It is true that in the application that the first respondent filed he did not allege that his services under the petitioner had been terminated on 4th March 1953. The application implied that he was still in the service of the petitioner. There was nothing specific in the application that the claim was limited for a period of six months preceding 30th June 1953, though the first respondent averred in his petition “the applicant estimates the value of the relief sought by him at Rs. 3168” (since he estimates that in the last preceding six months he has received not more than Rs. 36 as wages and has added ten times the excess due as compensation). That the first respondent claimed only Rs. 288 as balance of wages did not, of course, affect by itself the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to find out what exactly was the amount due and direct its payment under S. 20(3) of the Act. Learned Counsel for the first respondent pointed out that even the petitioner treated the claim of the first respondent as one for the period from 1st April 1952, when he contended in a supplementary affidavit filed on 29th October 1953, that the first respondent's claim was barred. That the claim was ultimately found to be erroneous and that more than what he claimed was found due to him did not conclude the question at issue, for what period did the first respondent claim minimum wages as due to him. I am unable to hold that there was no material on record on which the Tribunal could treat the application as a claim for wages due to the first respondent for the period of his services from 1st April 1952 to 4th March 1953.

The first proviso to Cl. 2 of S. 20 of the Act limits the period for which the claim could be made to six months computed from the date on which the minimum wages became payable. One of the contentions urged before me was that, that date should be taken as 1st April 1952, from which date the minimum wages fixed by the notification dated 28th March 1952 became payable, and that the period prescribed by the first proviso expired on 1st October, 1952, and that any application presented after 1st October 1952 could come only within the scope of the second proviso. Of course, that was not the contention put forward by the learned Counsel for the petitioner. I am unable to accept such a limited interpretation of the scope of the first proviso to Cl. 2 of S. 20 of the Act. Even for the employments specified in S. 3(1)(a)(i) the notification fixing the minimum wages is under S. 5 of the Act, and S. 12 provides for payment of wages at those rates after the notified date. I am unable to accept that the only date on which the wages became payable was 1st April 1952. The date on which wages became payable to a given employee would obviously depend on the contract of service between that employee and his employer, and in this case, it was found that the first respondent was entitled to a monthly wage. While dates on which wages became payable from time to time were determined by the contract between the parties, the rate at which such wages were payable were regulated by the Act and the notification issued thereunder. That I think is the true scope of the expression, date from which minimum wages became payable in the first proviso to S. 20 Cl. (2) of the Act. Wages that became payable to the first respondent, Bay, on 1st May, 1952, at the minimum prescribed by the Act should have been claimed under the first proviso within six months of that date. Were the first respondent's claim governed only by the first proviso, he could have claimed on 30th June, 1953 only the wages that became payable to him subsequent to 30th December, 1952 and not any amount that became payable to him earlier than that date.

But the second proviso to S. 20. Cl. 2 permitted the Tribunal in this case to investigate the claim for a period anterior to 30th December, 1952, if the applicant satisfied the authority, that is, the Tribunal, that the applicant had sufficient cause for not making the application within such period that is the period referred to in the first proviso to S. 20(2) of the Act. The Tribunal recorded in its order:

“The petitioner has however deposed that the delay in filing the petition must be excused because he was informed that he could file the petition within six months from removal from service. I consider that in the circumstances mentioned by the petitioner delay in filing the petition should be excused.”

Learned Counsel for the petitioner urged that the first respondent did not apply to the Tribunal to condone the delay and to extend to the first respondent the benefit of the second proviso. Neither the Act nor the rules framed thereunder prescribed that there should be, any written application to get the benefit of the second proviso. R. 27 to which the learned Counsel for the petitioner drew my attention only refer to the application contemplated by Sub-Cl. 2 of S. 20. As pointed out by the Supreme Court in Dinabandhu Sahu v. Mangaraj(1), with reference to an analogous provision) there is not even a requirement in the Act itself or in the rules framed thereunder that notice should be issued to the opposite side. The authority can act suo motu. As the Supreme Court pointed out, it is a matter between the Tribunal and the applicant whether delay should be excused. They pointed out the difference between statutory requirement of the kind in the proviso their Lordships had to consider and S. 5 of the Limitation Act. If the authority can act suo motu in excusing the delay, there can be no question of any written application being required to satisfy the requirements of the second proviso to S. 20(2) of the Act. I am unable, therefore, to see any substance in the contention of of the learned Counsel for the petitioner, that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to excuse the delay in the absence of any written application from the first respondent.

The next contention of the learned Counsel for the petitioner was that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to condone the delay after admitting the application dated 30th June, 1953 and the learned Counsel pointed out that the Tribunal purported to condone the delay only on 11th November, 1953 when it issued directions under S. 20(3) of the Act. Learned Counsel for the first respondent urged that the Tribunal must be deemed to hare condoned the delay on presentation though it explained the reasons for its satisfaction only in the order dated 11th November, 1953.

The enquiry into the claim was on 26th October, 1953. Though the petitioner filed two counter statements before that date, this question that the requirements of the second proviso were not satisfied with reference to the claim for the period anterior to 30th December, 1952, was not raised by the petitioner. In the proceedings before the Tribunal there was no issue about this, though a number of other issues were raised. It was only on 29th October, 1953 that the petitioner filed yet another counter statement, wherein he pleaded, “The present claim after a period of a year and a half is an ill thought of one belated and time barred.” No doubt it is a little difficult to hold that at any time prior to 28th October, 1953 the Tribunal had occasion to apply its mind to the question, whether the requirements of the second proviso had been satisfied. The explanation for delay was offered by the first respondent only on 28th October, 1953, and at best the Tribunal must be deemed to have been satisfied with the explanation only on 28th October, 1953, though that satisfaction was recorded by the Tribunal only in its order dated 11th November, 1953.

The main contention on this point by the learned Counsel for the petitioner was that satisfaction required by the second proviso to S. 20(2) of the Act must Have been before the application was admitted. What precisely constitutes admission of an application neither the Act nor the rules framed there under specified. While proviso 2 to S. 20(2) of the Act refers to an application admitted the language in Cl. 3 of S. 20 is “When an application under Sub-S. (2) is entertained.” Whether entertaining an application is a stage subsequent to the admission I am not called upon to decide in these proceedings. But taking the scope of both Cls. 2 and 3 of S. 20 together it seems to me clear that the admission of an application is a stage antecedent to the issue of notices prescribed by Sub-Cl. 3 of S. 20. There was certainly no satisfaction of the Tribunal on the basis on which it could excuse the delay before the stage of the enquiry, which would really mean that at the time of admitting the application the Tribunal was not called upon to satisfy itself. Nor did it satisfy itself then that there were sufficient causes to condone the delay.

Nonetheless the question now is whether the apparent defect in determining the question of fact, on which depended the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to investigate the claim for the period anterior to the six months referred to by the first proviso in S. 20(2) of the Act is such that the petitioner should be given ex debito justitiae the writ of certiorari that he asks for in this case. As I have already pointed out, the petitioner himself did not raise the question of limitation till after the enquiry was over, and even at that stage, he did not seek to make it the subject matter of an issue. Nor apparently was any adjudication of that question sought for by the Tribunal. On the merits of the first respondent's claim it cannot be said that anything other than substantial justice was done as between the parties. Even if I am to look upon this feature of the case as one of mistaken or erroneous decision on an issue of “jurisdictional fact” I do not think I should exercise any discretion in the circumstances of this case in favour of the, issue of a writ of certiorari.

The petition is dismissed, but without costs.

V.C.S

K. Ramaswamy Doss, P... v. A. Rama Pillai And A...