S. Roy, J.:— This application under Arts. 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India has been filed for quashing the notification, dated 28 May 1976, issued by the Central Government revising the minimum wages of the workmen employed in the mica mines. This notification is annexure 1 to the writ application.

2. The petitioners carry on mica mining business and their mica mines are situated in this State. The grievance of the petitioners is that as the workmen working in mica mines are not employed in “a scheduled employment” as defined in S. 2 (g) of the Minimum Wages, Act, 1948, (hereinafter called the Act), the Central Government had no jurisdiction to issue annexure 1 to the writ application.

3. There is no controversy that minimum wages may be fixed by the appropriate Government in respect of the employment specified in the schedule to the Act. There is also no controversy that the appropriate Government in relation to a mine is the Central Government. According to S. 2 (g) of the Act, scheduled employment means an employment specified in the schedule or any process or a branch of work forming part of such employment. Item (10) of the schedule is as follows: “employment in any mica works.” Sri Roy, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners, submitted that by virtue of item (10) of the schedule appropriate Government may fix minimum wages in respect of workmen employed in any mica works and it cannot so do in respect of a mica mine.

4. Mine has not been defined in the Act. According to the definition of “mine” given in the Mines Act, 1952, it means any excavation where any operation for the purpose of searching for or obtaining minerals has been or is, being carried on and includes:

(i) all borings, bore holes and oil wells;

(ii) all shafts, in or adjacent to and belonging to a mine, whether in the course of being sunk or not;

(iii) all levels and inclined planes in the course of being driven;

(iv) all open cast workings;

(v) all conveyors or aerial ropeways provided for the bringing into or removal from a mine of minerals or other articles or for the removal of refuse therefrom;

(vi) all audits, levels planes, machinery, works, railways, tramways, and sidings, in or adjacent to and belonging to a mine;

(vii) all workshops situated within the precincts of a mine end under the same management and used solely for purposes connected with that mine or a number of mines under the same management;

(viii) all power stations for supplying electricity solely for the purpose of working the mine or a number of mines under the same management;

(ix) any premises for the time being used for depositing refuse from a mine, or in which any operation in connexion with such refuse is being carried on, being premises exclusively occupied by the owner of the mine; and

(x) unless exempted by the Central Government by notification in the official gazette, any premises or part thereof, in or adjacent to and belonging to a mine, on which any process ancillary to the getting, dressing or preparation for sale of minerals or of coke is being carried on.”

The dictionary meaning of “mine” is, a place from which minerals are dug. Mine, therefore, means an excavation for searching or winning minerals and activities connected thereto. According to Oxford English Dictionary and Chambers' Dictionary, the word “work” in plural, i.e, “works” means a factory, a manufactory. Therefore, a place where a manufacturing process is carried on is a works. By no stretch of imagination “mine” can be included within the meaning of “works.” Therefore, item (10) of the schedule cannot include workmen employed in mica mine.

5. From the definition of “mine” quoted above it will appear that in Cl. (vii) workshops may be included within the meaning of “mine” if, besides other circumstances, it is used solely for the purposes connected with the mine. In the supplementary affidavit filed in this case, the petitioners have asserted that in the factories and establishments in question mica is cut and processed. These facts have not been denied by the respondent. It is the admitted case that annexure 1 relates to those places where mica is cut and processed. A place where mica is cut and processed can never be included in the definition of mine, inasmuch as the activities cannot be held to be connected with searching for or winning minerals. By the inclusive definition of “mine,” as quoted above, mine may include a works or workshop, but not vice versa.

6. This appears to be the correct legal position also from entries in items (12) and (13) of the schedule. By virtue of the powers vested in it by S. 27 of the Act the Central Government, in relation to mine, added items (12) and (13) which include gypsum mines, beryles mines, bauxite mines, manganese mines, china clay mines, kynite mines and magnesite mines. If Parliament or appropriate Government intended that the Act should apply also to workmen employed in mica mines, then it would have so specified in the schedule. Further, it appears that the State Government, which is the appropriate Government, have fixed minimum wages under the Act in respect of the employment in mica works and a notification was issued on 22 April 1975. Sri Sahai Sinha, learned Standing Counsel, Central Government, appearing on behalf of the Central Government, submitted that the said notification appears to have been made in respect of employment in mica works (factories and establishments) in the State of Bihar. On the basis of this, he contended that the State Government fixed minimum wages in respect of the factories and establishments in the mica industry and so far as mica mines are concerned it was for the Central Government to fix the minimum wages. In my opinion, there is no substance in the submission. By adding the words “factories and establishments” in the notification, the State Government has clarified more elaborately what it meant by “works.” To my mind, therefore, item (10) of the schedule does not include mica mines.

7. It is true that for interpreting the provisions which have been enacted for doing justice, the Court should adopt what is known as the beneficent rule of construction. That rule of construction shall apply only when the relevant words are capable of two constructions and if that is so, preference may be given which helps to sustain the validity of the impugned notification: Madhya Pradesh Mineral Industry Association v. Regional Labour Commissioner [A.I.R 1960 S.C 1058], that rule of interpretation also does not apply in this case as “works” in item (10) of the schedule cannot also be construed to mean “mine.” It must, therefore, be held that the notification (annexure 1) is ultra vires and must be quashed.

8. In the result, the application is allowed and the impugned notification which is contained in annexure 1 to the writ application is quashed. However, the Central Government may, by virtue of the power vested in it by S. 27 of the Act, add items in the schedule to achieve the object with which the impugned notification has been issued. There shall be no order as to costs.

9. Hari Lal Agrawal, J.:— While I agree with my learned brother that annexure 1 to the writ application should be quashed, I would like to add a few observations of my own. Under S. 3 of the Minimum Wages Act the appropriate Government has been authorized in the manner provided under the Act, to fix the minimum rates of wages payable to employees employed in an employment specified in Part I or Part II of the schedule. The expression “appropriate Government” has again been defined in Cl. (b) of S. 2, which may be either the Central Government or a State Government according to the employment as indicated under that clause.

10. The matter arises out of item (10) of the schedule of Part I which empowers the appropriate Government to fix minimum rates of wages with respect to “employment in any mica works.” Purporting to act under the authority of this scheduled employment, the Central Government, which undisputedly would be the appropriate Government with regard to fixation of minimum wages in relation to a mine, issued the impugned notification. The argument is that the expression “employment in any mica works” would not cover within its mischief the “employment in any mica mines.” It may also be mentioned that the State of Bihar has issued a notification, dated 22 April 1975, (annexure 6), with reference to this very item in relation to different categories of employees in the employment of mica works and the notification has specified various categories of employees whose minimum wages have been fixed by the notification of the State Government, and on a scrutiny of the said notification itself it would appear that mica requires an extensive processing after it is taken out of the mica mines, such as cutting, sorting and processing, splitting, passing, matering, fabrication of all types of mica, and the like.

11. My learned brother has already referred to the dictionary meaning of the word “works” in his judgment, according to which it means “factories” and “establishments.” The expression “mine” on the other hand, has got a different connotation according to its very definition under the Mines Act which has also been noticed in the judgment of my learned brother and I do not want to repeat the same. Suffice it to say that the connotations of “mica mine” and “mica works” are entirely distinguishable and different and both occupy quite different fields and areas of operation. In my view, therefore, it would not be reasonable to read “mica mines” in the expression “mica works,” particularly whenever it was intented to include employment in relation to any mine, then under item (12) by clear intendment, employments in various kinds of mines have been stated in unambiguous manner. As the inclusion of an employment in the schedule is a condition precedent for issuing any notification by the appropriate Government, I must hold that the notification issued by the Central Government as contained in annexure 1 fixing the minimum wages of the various employees working in the mica mines, is ultra vires and must be quashed.