IMPORTANT POINT
An ex-employee is entitled to reliefs enumerated under Section 20(2) of the Minimum Wages Act.

ORDER

The High Court of Punjab and Haryana allowed the writ petition of the respondent Managing Committee of the Army School, Jallandhar, upsetting the orders of the Authority under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, on the premise that the appellants seeking relief were its ex-employees and not existing ones, and hence dis-entitled to move a petition under Section 20(2) of the Act for appropriate relief.

2. The employees voiced grievance before the Authority that the Army School had not paid them the minimum wages fixed by the State Government from time to time, as per details given in the application, and therefore they were entitled to reliefs enumerated under Section 20(2) of the above said Act. The said provision reads as under :

20(2) Where an employee has any claim of the nature referred to in sub-section (1), the employee himself,or any legal practitioner trade union authorised in writing to act on his behalf, or any Inspector, or any Inspector, or any person acting with the permission of the Authority appointed under sub-section (1), may apply to such Authority for a direction under sub-section (3) :

Provided that every such application shall be presented within six months from the date on which the minimum wages [or other amount] became payable.

Provided further that any application may be admitted after the said period of six months when the applicant satisfied the Authority that he had sufficient cause for not making the application within such period.

The word employee as defined in Section 2(i) of the Act is as follows :

In this Act unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or content :-

"2(i) "employee" means any person who is employed for hire or reward to do any work, skilled or unskilled, manual or clerical, in a scheduled employment in respect of which minimum rates of wages have been fixed; and includes an out-worker to whom any articles or materials are given out by another person to be made up, cleaned, washed, altered, ornamented, finished, repaired, adapted or otherwise processes for sale for the purposes of the trade or business of that other person where the process is to be carried out either in the home of the out-worker or in some other premises not being premises under the control and management of that other person; and also includes an employee declared to be an employee by the appropriate Government; but does not include any member of the Armed Forces of the [Union]."

3. The High Court relying on an earlier Division Bench decision of the Punjab High Court in Municipal Committee, Raikot v. Sham Lal Kaura & Ors.1, took the view that the word employee , defined in Section 2(i) of the Act did not include an ex-employee. It was held in the said case that a person who is not in the actual employment of the employer at the time of making an application under Section 20(2) of the Act, was not entitled to seek relief. Another Single Bench decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Mahiya v. State of Haryana & Ors.2, in line with the decision of M.C. Rajkot s case was taken in aid, to conclude that in the presence of these binding precedents the writ petition merited acceptance and on that basis the orders of the Authority was set aside. This has given rise to these special leave petitions.

4. We grant special leave and dispose of the appeals simultaneously.

5. Section 30 of the Act confers on the appropriate government power to make rules. The Minimum Wages (Central) Rules, 1950 framed by the Central Government prescribe Forms wherein particulars to be mentioned in the application for seeking relief are provided. Form VI for the purpose of Section 20 (2), so far relevant provides :

"The application above-named states as follows :

(1) The applicant was/has been employed from ........ to......as......... (category) in ......... (establishment) of Shri/Messrs............ engaged in .........(nature of work) which is a scheduled employment within the meaning of