Rajasthan High Court - Jaipur
Management, Hindustan Machine Tools ... vs Judge, Labour Court And Anr. on 17 April, 1990
Equivalent citations: (1992)ILLJ494RAJ
JUDGMENT I.S. Israni, J.
1. The Management, Hindustan Machine Tools Ltd., Ajmer has filed this writ petition against the award dated September 21, 1988, passed by the Judge, Labour Court, Jaipur, in Reference Case No. ICR 157/83, which was published on December 28, 1988.
2. An application dated December 17, 1989 under Section 17B of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short, 'the Act') has been filed on behalf of the respondent No. 2 -- the workman, praying that a direction be given to the petitioner to make the payment of last drawn wages to him from the date when the writ proceedings were initiated/filed before this Court.
In the application, in para No. 5, it has been stated that the respondent No. 2 - workman, prior to the award, was not employed in any other Industrial Establishment nor he is now gainfully employed in any Industrial Establishment, after the passing of the award till date. An affidavit in support of this application has also been filed.
3. A reply to this application has been filed on bahalf of the petitioner, in which, it has been stated that the respondent No. 2 has not come with clean hands and that the application is not in accordance with the provisions of Section 17B of the I.D. Act. It is submitted by Mr. Manoj Sharma, learned Counsel, that respondent No. 2 has mentioned in his application that he is not employed in any 'Industrial Establishment', whereas the requirement of Section 17B is that he should not be employed in any 'Establishment'. It is, therefore, pointed out that respondent No. 2 has deliberately avoided to give out the true facts. It is also submitted that the respondent No. 2 is employed in a tea shop, situated in Shastrinagar, opposite the residence of Shri Bhanwar Singh Choudhary and is earning adequate remuneration amounting to Rs. 150/- per day as per information gathered by the petitioner's Officer -Shri G.L. Chataria, whose affidavit in support of this has been also been filed.
4. Before proceeding further, it will be advantageous to extract the provisions of Section 17B, which are as under:-
"17B. Payment of full wages to workman pending proceedings in Higher Courts:
Where in any case a Labour Court, Tribunal or National Tribunal by its award directs re-instatement of any workman and the employer prefers any proceedings against such award in a High Court or the Supreme Court, the employer shall be liable to pay such workman, during the period of pendency of such proceedings in the High Court or the Supreme Court, full wages last drawn by him, inclusive of any maintenance allowance admissible to him under any rule if the workman had not been employed in any establishment during such period and an affidavit by such workman had been filed to that effect in such Court:
Provided that where it is proved to the satisfaction of the High Court or the Supreme Court that such workman had been employed and had been receiving adequate remuneration during any such period or part thereof, the Court shall order that no wages shall be payable under this section for such period or part, as the case may be."
A bare reading of this provision shows that the following four pre-requisites are necessary before an application under Section 17B of the Act can be considered and allowed. Firstly, there should be an award passed by the Labour Court/ Tribunal or National Tribunal, in which, a direction for re-instatement of any worker should have been given. Secondly, the employer should have preferred any proceedings, against such award in the High Court or Supreme Court. Thirdly, the employer shall be liable to pay such workman during the period of pendency of such proceedings in the High Court or Supreme Court full wages last drawn by him, if the workman had not been employed in any Establishment during such period. Fourthly, an affidavit by such workan in support of his assertion to that effect should be filed alongwith the application. It is further provided in the proviso that where it is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that such workman has been employed and receiving adequate remuneration during any such period or part thereof, no wages shall be payable to him under this section for such period or part thereof, as the case may be.
5. From the pre-requisites mentioned above, it is evident that the first two pre-requisites are satisfied in this case, but, there is dispute regarding the fact of workman being gainfully employed during the pendency of the proceedings in this Court. In reply to the application filed on behalf of the petitioner and the affidavit filed by Shri Ganpat Lal Chhatariya, it has been stated that he has personally seen the workman running a tea shop, which is situated at main Shastrinagar Road, in Ajmer. It is also stated that there are a number of Government Offices near the shop, which is operated by the workman and the tea shop remains very busy and is remunerative for the workman. According to the assesment of the deponant, the workman earns not less than Rs. 150/- per day from the tea shop, which is adequate remuneration. It is also stated that the workman is also paying the rent for the premises for running the tea shop.
6. A rejoinder-affidavit was also filed to the reply by the respondent No. 2 workman, in which, it has been stated that he is not at all employed in any tea shop situated at Shastri-5 nagar as alleged in reply to the application filed ny the petitioner. It is also stated that it is absolutely wrong to allege that he is earning Rs. 150/- per day. It has been further stated that he is not paying rent for the alleged shop.
7.1 find force in the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that in the application under Section 17B and affidavit filed in support thereof, it has been stated that respondent No. 2 is not employed in any 'Industrial Establishment'. The requirement of the section is that the workman has to state that he is not gainfully employed in any 'Establishment'. However, in the rejoinder-affidavit, it has been clearly stated that he is not employed in any tea shop, nor is running the same and earning Rs. 150/- per month and further, that he does not pay any rent, as alleged by the petitioner, regarding the premises in which tea shop is running. It may, therefore, be said that even though initially, the requirement of Section 17B is not satisfied, the subsequent affidavit has made the matters clear. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that since the respondent No. 2 is earning Rs. 150/- per day from a tea shop he does not deserve to be given any payment under the provisions of Section 17B of the I.D. Act. This contention is not tenable on two grounds. Firstly, as provided in proviso to Section 17B of the I.D.Act, it has to be proved by the petitioner to the satisfaction of this Court that the workman has been employed and has been receiving adequate remuneration during any such period or part thereof. In this case, there is an affidavit against affidavit. There is no reason why the affidavit of respondent No. 2 should be discarded and affidavit filed on behalf of the petitioner should be accepted. The petitioner could have obtained certified copy from the concerned department to show that the licence of tea shop is in whose name and could have also obtained information from the landlord as to who pays the rent to him, therefore, there are no documents in support of the bald allegation made in reply to the application, in support of which, an afidavit has been filed. Apart from this I am clear in my mind that what is required under the provisions of Section 17 of the I.D Act is that the workman had not been employed in any Establishment. Therefore, what is required is that the workman should be employed from which he receives adequate remuneration to disentitle him to receive any favourable order under provisions of Section 17B of the Act. Secondly, what is emphasised in this Section is that the workman should be employed but if he is carrying on some work to make his both ends meet and fill the belly of his family it will not disentitle him to get the payment as provided under Section 17B of the I.D. Act. It may be mentioned that this Section is a beneficial piece of Legislation which has been enacted for the benefit of the workman to see that they do not suffer on account of stay of award, which has been passed in his favour by the Labour Court. The litigation is a time consuming process and the workman cannot be made to suffer for years till the writ petition filed by the employer is disposed of finally. With a view to surmount this difficulty, the provisions of Section 17B were added to the I.D. Act with clear intention to give relief to the workman during the pendency of litigation in the High Court/Supreme Court. To bring about the balance of justice, proviso to this has been added, which also authorises the Court not to make payment, if it is satisfied that the workan has been employed and receiving adequate remuneration. If such satisfaction is not there, the order of payment should more or less follow automatically as provided in the section itself. The learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on S. Raju v. George Oakes Ltd. 1988 (1) WLN 127 (Madras). This was a case in which the management obtained interim stay of the award and the employee filed miscellaneous petition to vacate the stay and in an affidavit also claimed the monthly salary and allowances till disposal of the writ petition. The High Court while ordering interim stay to be absolute, directed that he should be paid Rs. 22,000.00 within four weeks. The petitioner again filed an application under Section 17B for payment of monthly wages during the pendency of the writ petition. It was held that while considering his petition to vacate the stay order, his claim to monthly wages under Section 17B had also been considered and only thereafter, the sum of Rs. 22,000.00 was directed to be paid to him. Therefore, the workman cannot again claim that : he should also be paid monthly wages till disposal of the writ petition. This authority evidently, is of no help to the petitioner. I am also fortified in my opinion by a decision of this Court in Krishi Upaj Mandi Samiti, Dholpur v. State of Rajasthan and two others (D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1081/81 decided on September 23, 1987) in which also, it was held that the employment must be as an employee in an establishment and it would not cover a case where the workman carries on some private activity to make a living, because carrying on such an activity by the workman cannot be regarded as being employed in any establishment. In the present case, in reply to the application filed in para No. 4, it has been mentioned that the respondent No. 2 is employed in a tea shop, whereas, in the affidavit filed in support of the application, it is mentioned that he is personally running the tea shop and earning Rs. 150.00 per day from the same. This shows that he has filed an affidavit in support of the reply on behalf of the petitioner that the respondent No. 2 is not employed anywhere.
8. In the result, I, therefore, allow this civil miscellaneous petition and direct the petitioner to pay to the respondent No. 2, Shri Ganshyam Sharma, full wages as last drawn by him, inclusive of maintenance allowance, if any, admissible to him from April 1, 1989, the date on which this petition was filed till the date of its disposal. The payment of arrears shall be made within two months from the date of this order.