P L D 1952 Lahore 108 (PLP)

A. R. CORNELIUS, A. C. J.‑This is a case under section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, and comes before this Court on a revision petition filed by the Divisional Superintendent, North Western Railway, Lahore. The employee in the case is one Inam‑u‑Haq, a booking clerk, who had applied in the Court of the Senior Subordinate Judge at, Lahore, being the officer appointed under subsection (1) of section 15 of the Act to hear and decide claims of the relevant kind arising in the Lahore area. The claim was for Rs. 1,230 plus interest at the rate of 12 percent. on account of delayed, wages and allowance, to which was added a sum of Rs. 500 byway of compensation. In the course of the proceedings before the learned Senior Subor dinate judge, a payment was made to Inam‑ul‑Haq by the Railway, which was accepted by the Court as the amount actually due on account of wages. There remained for decision the question of compensation, Which was apparently understood by the employee in the sense of damages, for he claimed initially Rs. 500, and at the stage of appeal Rs. 1,000 on this account, whereas in the section itself, viz., subsection (3) of section 15, the amount of the compensation permitted is fixed at the very modest sum of Rs.

10. The learned Senior Subordinate judge thought that Inam‑ul‑Haq's was a very hard case arid that he had been put to great inconveni ence through payment of his wages being delayed for about 15 months. Expressing regret that the only compensation for delay in payment of wages was Rs. 10, the learned judge remarked that he would have awarded higher compensation had it been permissible. In fact, 'he allowed the petitioner Rs 20 on this account, on the ground appearing from his order which is reproduced below :‑‑ " The petitioner is entitled to compensation on account of the delayed payment of wages. As the payment was delayed for over a year, I grant compensation to the petitioner at the rate of Rs 10 for each term of six months, that is, to a total compensation of Rs. 20". When the case went up in appeal, the learned Additional District judge, who heard it, noting what had been said by the learned Senior Subordinate judge' on the subject of compensation, observed that; in his opinion, the law did permit the first Court to award compensation in excess of that which he had allowed. The learned Additional District Judge thought there was force in the argument presented to him on behalf of‑Inam‑ul‑Haq that the compensation of Rs. 10 fixed by subsection (3) (if section 15 was allowable in respect of each month's wages. He did not agree with the first Court that because an application can only be presented within six months from the date on which the payment of the wages claimed fall due (vide the first proviso to sub section (2) of section 15), therefore, each period of six months should be taken as a unit, and held that for the purposes of compensation, the wage‑period should be one month and a claim of compensation, although made in respect of arrears of wages for a period of several months, should be treated as a claim for compensation separately in relation to each month. The learned Additional District judge went on to find that out of the 15 months' period in respect of which delay was alleged, Inam‑ul‑Haq had been paid wages for three months, for which period he was only claiming an increment, and that thereafter he was on leave for one month at one time and ten days on another occasion. Regard ing the latter broken period as a full month, the learned Judge treated the claim in respect of delayed wages as cover ing a period of ten months. Noting that the applicant had made repeated demands for his salary each month, he allowed him Rs. 10 as compensation for each month of this period or Rs 100 in all. It is against this order that the Divisional Superintendent has filed his petition, and the contention is raised before me that the argument upon which the award of Rs. 100 as compensation has been based is not valid in law, but that in respect of a single claim for delayed wages for a considerable period, the amount of compensation that can be awarded under the statute is Rs. 10 and no more. In other words, the wages claimed in the application cannot be divided into wages for the different wage‑periods comprising the total period in respect of which the claim is made, but the whole claim is to be regarded as a single claim, and in respect of the whole claim, only one allowance by way of compensation may be made and this cannot exceed Rs.

10. This argument has been met on the opposite side by a reference to sections 4 and 5 of the Act. Subsection (2) of section 4 states that no wage‑period shall exceed one month. Section 5 fixes the time of payment of the wages, and differ entiates between establishments, factories, etc., in which less than one thousand persons are employed and those in which more than one thousand persons are employed. In the former case, the wages of every employee shall be paid within seven days of the close of the relevant wage‑period, and in the latter case, within ten days. It is common ground that the wage‑period in the present case is one month. It was argued on the strength of this provision alone that for the purposes of applying the rule of compensation for delayed payment of wages, contained in subsection (3) of section 15, any claim comprising wages for more than one wage‑period should be regarded by the authority granting compensation as being composed, for the purpose of such a grant, of so many separate claims for salary for each wage‑period or part thereof included in the claim. The relevant provisions of the statute are as under :‑ "4. (1) Every person responsible, for the payment of wages under section 3 shall fix periods (in this Act referred (2) No wage‑period shall exceed one month. 5. (1) The wages of every person employed upon or in, (a) any railway, factory or industrial establishment upon or in which less than one thousand persons are employed, shall be paid before the expiry of the seventh day, (b) any other railway, factory, or industrial establishment, shall be paid before the expiry of the tenth day, after the last day of the wage‑period in respect of which the wages are payable. (2) * * * * * * (3) * * * * * * (4) * * * * * * 15. (1) The Provincial Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint any Commissioner for Work men's Compensation or other officer with experience as a judge of a Civil Court or as a stipendiary Magistrate to be the authority to hear and decide for any specified area all claims arising out of deductions from the wages, or delay in payment of the wages, of persons employed or paid in that area. (2) Where contrary to the provisions of this Act any deduction has been made from the wages of an employed person, or any payment of wages has been delayed, such person himself, or any legal practitioner or any official of a registered trade union authorised in writing to act on his behalf, or any Inspector under this Act, or any other person acting with the permission of the authority appointed under subsection (1), may apply to such authority for a direction under subsection (3): Provided that every such application shall be presented within six months from the date on which the deduction from the wages was made or from the date on which the payment of the wages was due to be made, as the case may be: "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. (3) When any application under subsection (2) is enter tained, the authority shall hear the applicant and the employer or other person responsible for the payment of wages under section 3, or give them an opportunity of being heard, and, after such further inquiry (if any) as may be necessary, may, without prejudice to any other penalty to which such employer or other person is liable under this Act, direct the refund to the employed person of the amount deducted, or the, payment of the delayed wages together with the payment of such compensation as the authority may think fit, not exceeding ten times the amount deducted in the former case and not exceeding ten rupees in the latter: Provided that no direction for the payment of compensa tion shall be made in the case of delayed wages if the authority is satisfied that the delay was due to‑ (a) a bona fide error or a bona fide dispute as to the amount payable to the employed person, or (b) the occurrence of an emergency, or the existence of exceptional circumstances, such that the persons responsible for the payment of the wages was unable, though exercising (c) the failure of the emyloyed person to apply for or accept payment. (4) * * * * * (5) * * * * * It seems to me sufficiently clear from a simple perusal of these provisions that they will not bear the interpretation which is sought to be put upon them by learned counsel for the respondent, Inam‑ul‑Haq. It is evident that, if compensa tion under subsection (3) of section 15 had been intended by the Legislature to be awarded separately in respect of the wage for each wage‑period included in the claim, this would have necessitated the employment of far more elaborate language than is found in this subsection. Throughout, in section 15, the references to the claims arising out of delay in payment of wages are in terms which indicate' that such claims are for the entire sum overdue as wages, and there are no words which indicate that where a claim is made, it should be divided up for any of the purposes of this section into a series of separate claims for the consecutive wage periods involved. Again, the period of six months which is mentioned in the first proviso, to subsection (2) of this section, is obviously a period of limitation, which must .not be exceeded if a claim is to be dealt with under this particular provision of law. The second proviso enables extension of this period by the authority hearing the claim, for good cause shown, and this makes it further clear that these two provisos contain nothing more than a rule of limitation. I have been unable to see the line of reasoning by which the learned Senior Sub‑Judge in the first instance employed the mention of six months in these two provisos to create what he regarded as a unit for the purposes of compensation. Having the provisions before him, the natural conclusion that he should have drawn was that at least as to the period of wages for nine ‑months out of the fifteen months period, the claim was barred by time before him. This point never arose for decision owing to the railway authorities having made payment of the overdue amounts in the course of the proceed ings, but in any case, there appears no foundation whatso ever for the conclusion reached by the learned Senior Subordinate Judge that he could award Rs. 10 as compen sation for every six months' period for which the wages were overdue. As to the conclusion of the learned Additional District judge that the amount of compensation was awardable in each wage‑period included in the claim, I have already indicated my view that nothing in the language of section 15 can be adduced to sustain such a conclusion. The impression is gained, and must be recorded with regret, that both the learned judges of the Courts below have been guided by sympathy with the unfortunate case of the employee here into making experiments in legislation, by placing, their own somewhat involved interpretations upon the plain provisions of section

15. I accordingly allow this petition and setting aside the orders of the Courts below, I award Inam‑ul‑Haq a sum of Rs. 10 only as compensation. In the circumstances of the case, there will be no order as to costs. K. M. A. Petition accepted.