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Judgment
Balakrishna Ayyar, J.—This is a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution to revise the order of the Labour Court of Coimbatore in
M.W.P. No. 80 of 1957, dated 31st December 1957.
On 19th October 1957, thirty-two persons who claimed to be workers in an estate called the Wakefield Estate applied through the President of
the Neelamalai Plantation Workers'' Union to the Labour Court at Coimbatore for certain directions u/s 20(3) of the Minimum Wages Act, Their
case was that they had been working in Wakefield Estate from March 1957, to September 1957, and that they had not been paid the wages due
to them under the Minimum Wages Act. They claimed that a sum of Rs. 1,153-3-0 was due to them in the aggregate and prayed that directions be
given to the management of the Wakefield Estate to pay them this money.
The Manager of the estate filed a counter in which he stated:
None of the applicants is entitled to claim the difference in wages claimed as none of the Petitioners is employed by this Respondent.
The workers filed a rejoinder to the effect that ''the Petitioners are workmen employed by the Respondent''. The this Court filed an additional
counter in which he admitted that some of the applicants had worked in his estate for some days in March 1957; but he categorically asserted that
none of the workers had worked in his estate on any day from April to September inclusive. The Tribunal held that the workers were entitled to
the amount they claimed and issued the directions prayed for. The management has now come to this Court to have this order quashed.
The first question that arises for determination is whether any of the Respondent actually worked in Wakefield Estate from April to September
1957, inclusive. Of the thirty-two Petitioners, ten were examined as W. Ws. 3 to 12. If we leave them out for the moment, there would be twenty-
two of the Petitioners left. To show that any of them worked in Wakefield Estate at any time from April to September 1957 inclusive, there is
extraordinarily little evidence. learned Counsel for the Respondent was able to draw my attention only to two sentences in the evidence of W.W.
12 as constituting the evidence on this point. One sentence was in the chief-examination which ran as follows:
Through till Deepavali, I have been working. The persons whose names you now read are all workers who were all regularly working; here till
Deepavali.
The other sentence was in cross-examination and it ran:
All the workers, who figure in this petition and whose names were read just now all have been working only in your estate.
W.W.12 who gave these two answers is an ignorant and illiterate woman who does not know even her age. The record does not show what
names were put to W.W.12 when she was examined-in-chief. It will also be noticed that so far as the answer she gave in cross-examination is
concerned, it does not indicate what the period of time was during which these persons worked in Wakefield Estate. If these twenty-two persons
actually worked in Wakefield Estate from April to September inclusive, it is really surprising that no better evidence was forthcoming. Not one of
these persons went into the box to say that he or she actually worked in the estate during that period. Not one of the nine persons who were
examined as W. Ws. 3 to 11 stated that any of these twenty-two persons worked in the estate. I may mention here that name of none of these
persons appears in exhibit M-4, the acquittance roll maintained by the Wakefield Estate for the period from April to September 1957. Certain
comments were made on this register and to those I shall return presently. At the moment it will be sufficient to mention that name of not one of
these persons appears in the register.
So far as W. Ws. 3 to 12 are concerned, they did, no doubt, say that they worked in the estate from April to September 1957. But there is
nothing more than their word of mouth and to support it there is no evidence whatever ; the name of not one of these persons appears in exhibit
M-4. So far as this document and some others produced by Wakefield Estate are concerned, the criticism was made that they were not produced
before W.W. 1, the Labour Officer who visited the estate in October 1957 and therefore they must be spurious. On this comment, I would make
a few observations. The first is that the person whom W.W. 1 asked to produce the books was the manager of the estate, and he then stated that
the books were with the proprietor. If the proprietor had been called upon to produce any book and he had omitted to do so, then the criticism
based on non-production of the book would have some force. That apart, I find it impossible to believe that exhibit M-4 could have been
fabricated. The motive for fabricating a book of this kind could have arisen only after the disputes between the parties started. That dispute came
into existence only in October 1957. To fabricate a book like exhibit M-4 would have required the co-operation of at least thirty-three persona,
because either the signatures or the thumb-marks of as many as thirty-three persons appear in this book. One may presume that the existence of
the dispute between the Wakefield Estate and the Respondent must have been known to the other workers in the estate. In that context it is very
unlikely, that the management would have sought to enlist the co-operation of any of the workers to fabricate a document of this kind. Even if it
had, it is in the last degree unlikely that the workers would have obliged the management. I notice at page 11 of the book thumb-marks of various
persons without the amounts paid to them having been entered. This, no doubt, shows that the thumb-marks of the workers were obtained in
advance of the entries. But it does not show and cannot show that the register was fabricated. The comment was made that exhibit M-4 does not
contain the initials of any officers. I do not consider that circumstance to be of any importance.
The lower Court observed that the evidence of these workers (W. Ws. 3 to 12) that they are permanent workers is fully supported by exhibits
W-1 to W-11. This observation is demonstrably erroneous. Exhibits W- 1 to W- 11 are chits issued by one John on behalf of the management
requesting that the persons referred to in them be given medical attention and treatment. There is no evidence whatever to show that the persons
mentioned in the chits are among the Petitioners. None of the persons, whose names appear in the chits has been examined and certainly no one
who has been examined has given evidence to say that he or she is the person referred to in any of these chits.
Regarding the failure of the management to produce certain books, the Court below observed:
Regarding W.W.2, he also stated that at a time when he inspected, he wanted certain books. The Manager did not produce them. Thus, the non-
production of material books is clearly made out by these two officers. Even at the time of the enquiry the management had not cared to produce
the books said to have been signed by the Labour Officer.
The Tribunal, however, did not ascertain what the books were which were called for and which were not produced. Nor did it consider what
bearing those books would have had, if produced, on the claim of the Respondent that they had been working in Wakefield Estate from April to
September 1957.
The Tribunal did not say in clear terms that exhibit M-4 is a fabricated document, and on the evidence it is impossible to reach or maintain any
such conclusion. If that document it not fabricated, the claim of the Petitioners that they worked in Wakefield Estate from April to September 1957
must fail.
So far as March 1957 is concerned, names of some of the Petitioners appear in exhibit M-3, and so the only question here is whether they
have been paid the minimum rate of wages they are entitled to under the Act or only smaller amounts. On this point there is the evidence of W.W.
1 which runs as follows:
Men workers were paid Rs. 1-4-0 and women workers Re. 1, and pluckers at six pies for 1 Ib. of green leaves plucked. This is what the workers
told me. The Manager also told me that this is correct, i.e., what the workers told me.
This witness was not cross-examined on this part of his evidence, and I must take it as correct. No doubt, exhibit M-3 shows that they were
paid at the rate fixed by the statute; but to this circumstance I attach no importance. Very often receipts are taken from employees for amounts
larger than those actually handed over to them. On this part of this case my conclusion is that all the Petitioners whose names appear in exhibit M-3
are entitled to be paid for March 1957, the difference between the wages actually paid to them according to the evidence of W.W. 1 and what
would be admissible to them under the Minimum Wages Act.
The learned Advocate for the Respondent referred me to the decision in Nagendra Nath Bora and Another Vs. The Commissioner of Hills
Division and Appeals, Assam and Others, , where the scope of the power of the High Court to interfere under Article 227 of the Constitution is
explained and contended that in the present case there is no justification whatever for interfering with the conclusions reached by the Tribunal. If the
conclusion reached by the Tribunal had been based on some little acceptable evidence, however inadequate it might be, I would not have
interfered. But so far as twenty-two of the workers are concerned, the evidence is so little as to be practically non-existent. So far as the other ten
are concerned, there is no doubt, some evidence, namely, the statements of ""W. Ws. 3 to 12. But that evidence is one, which, in my opinion, no
reasonable man could possibly accept. Before we can accept their evidence, we must be prepared to say that exhibit M-4 is a fabricated
document and it seems to me that it is impossible to say that. That being so, I think this Court will be justified in interfering.
The second contention of Mr. Jagadisa Iyer was this. The summary remedy provided by Section 20(2) of the Minimum Wages Act is available
only to an employee. So far as it is now material the definition of the word, '' employee '' in Section 2(i) runs as follows:
Employee means any person who is employed for hire or reward to do any work ... in a scheduled employment in respect of which minimum rates
of wages have been fixed.
The definition then goes to say that the word '' employee '' includes out-workers and other persons declared to be employees by the
appropriate Government. With that we are not now concerned. According to Mr. Jagadisa Iyer, a person who seeks relief under the Act must be
an employee within the definition of the Act at the time he seeks the relief.
In the Industrial Disputes Act which is an earlier enactment the word workman is defined as meaning any person employed in any industry and
includes for certain purposes workmen who have been discharged. But persons who have ceased to be employees are not included in the
definition of '' employee'' in the Minimum Wages Act. According to ordinary routine practice a draftsman who was called upon to define a word in
a statute would look for precedents in the earlier Acts and it is unlikely that he would have overlooked the definition of workman in the Industrial
Disputes Act of 1947, which had been passed only about a year before. The inference legitimately arises that persons who ceased to be
employees were deliberately left out of the definition of the word '' employee'' in 1948. Dealing with this aspect of the matter, Mr. Sankaran, the
learned Advocate for the Respondent, contended that if the view which Mr. Jagadisa Iyer put forward is accepted, the result would be that an
employee whose services have been terminated without his having been paid the wages due to him in full would be unable to recover them. But
that is not so. Where minimum wages have been fixed for an employee in any industry, he would have earned those minimum wages during the
period he was in employment. The sum of money payable to him would be a debt which he can collect by resort to, should the need arise, the
ordinary Courts. It will also be open to him to raise an industrial dispute over the matter. An employee whose services are terminated will not,
therefore, lose the wages he has earned. The only thing is that he will not be entitled to invoke the summary machinery provided in Section 20 of
the Minimum Wages Act after he ceases to be an employee.
There is nothing new in such a view of the matter. Under the Madras Estates Land Act, for example, a landholder to whom arrears of rent are
due could collect the money by distraining the movable property of the ryot in arrear. But he would not be entitled to do so if before effecting the
distraint the relationship of landholder and ryot ceases to exist.
The argument of Mr. Sankaran requires that the word '' employee '' in Section 20 of the Act should be so construed as to include past
employees. If that had been the intention of the Legislature it is difficult to understand why the section war not so drafted as to include past
employees also. If we look into the Indian Companies Act, we find that the relevant sections there are so drafted that where it is intended to confer
rights or to fasten liabilities on past members, the words '' past members'' are inserted in the appropriate place. Similar provision is to be found in
the Co-operative Societies Act ; and I have no doubt that there are other enactments which contain similar provisions.
Since Section 20 speaks only of employees and does not speak of past employees, and since the word '' employee'' is defined as meaning a
person who is employed, I consider that the summary remedy provided by Section 20 is not available to past employees. On this ground alone,
this petition is bound to succeed.
This petition is allowed and the order of the Court below is set aside. There will be no order as to costs.