Karnataka Central Cooperative Bank ... vs Karpi on 13 October, 1986
10. Learned Counsel Sri Gururajan referred me to the decision in Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Corporation Vs. Payment of Wages Authority 35 FJR 417. The Andhra Pradesh High Court held that the subsistence allowance payable to an employee who has been placed under suspension pending enquiry into alleged acts of misconduct, will fall within the definition of "wages" in the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, notwithstanding that the payment of the allowance is a matter of discretion of the employer under the rules of service and that once payment of subsistence allowance has been given, in the absence of any rule providing for its withdrawal, the payment must be continued and that therefore, the authority under the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, will have jurisdiction to deal with a claim for the payment of subsistence allowance which has been withheld by the employer. It was a case where the subsistence allowance itself was withheld. The said case does not consider the question as to whether any loss of wages on account of the suspension, would amount to a deduction from the wages within the meaning of Sections 7 and 15 of the Act. As already stated above by me, Section 7 of the Act makes it absolutely clear that any loss of the wages resulting from suspension will not amount to a deduction from wages in any case within the meaning of the Act. Sub-sistence allowance is given so that an employee should survive to face the enquiry. It is not on account of any service rendered to the employer that the subsistence allowance is give. Subsistence allowance is given not by way of wages, but only with a view to see that the employee struggles to survive in order to face the enquiry. Therefore, subsistence allowance, even viewed from any angle, will not amount to wages within the meaning of the Act at all.