Wages fixed by an industrial award are included in the definition of "wages" under Section 2(vi) of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, as such awards supplant original contractual terms and constitute a fresh contract between the employer and employees.

Judgment

GAJENDRAGADKAR, C.J.I. : The short question which arises in this appeal is whether the term "wages" as defined by S. 2(vi) of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (No. 4 of 1936) (hereinafter called the Act ) includes wages fixed by an award in an industrial dispute between the employer and his employees. This question has to be answered in the light of the definition prescribed by S. 2(vi) before it was amended in 1958.* The subsequent amendment expressly provides by S. 2(vi) (a) that any remuneration payable under any award or settlement between the parties or order of a Court, would be included in the main defination under S. 2(vi). The point which we have to decide in the present appeal is whether the remuneration payable under an award was not already included in the definition of wages before the said definition was amended. It is common ground that between the appellant, Sasamusa Sugar Works Ltd., and its workmen, the respondents, an award had been made by the Industrial Tribunal fixing the pay of the employees at Rs. 2/2/- per day, and in pursuance of the said award, the management of the appellant had entered into an agreement with the respondents that effect would be given to the wage structure prescribed by the said award. This agreement was subsequently published in the Bihar Gazette as a part of the award. In spite of the award and the agreement, the appellant paid its employees only As. -/10/- per day and that led to the present claim made by the respondents under S. 15 of the Act. The respondents contended before the payment of wages authority that the refusal of the appellant to pay to them wages at the rate awarded, in substance, amounted to an illegal deduction from their wages and on that basis, they asked for an order from the authority directing the appellant to pay to the respondents the said prescribed wages.

* Clause (vi) of Sect. 2 was substituted for the original cl. (vi) by the Payment of Wages (Amendment) Act, 1957 (68 of 1957), S. 3. This amendment came into force on 1-4-1958 - Ed.

2. The appellant raised two pleas against the respondent s claim. It urged that S. 15 of the Act was inapplicable, because the rates of wages fixed by the award did not fall within the definition of wages prescribed by S. 2 (vi) and it also argued that the claim of the respondents was barred by limitation. The authority has found that S. 2(vi) includes wages prescribed by the Industrial Tribunal, and so, it has rejected the appellant s contention that the applications made by the respondents were incompetent under S. 15 of the Act. In regard to the question of limitation the authority did not decide the said question as a preliminary question, because it held, and in our opinion, rightly, that it was a mixed question of fact and law, and so, it had to be tried after recording evidence.

3. The appellant challenged the correctness of the conclusion of the authority that the applications made by the respondents were competent under S. 15 of the Act before the Patna High Court by filing a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution. The High Court has affirmed the finding of the authority and held that S. 15 was applicable to the case, because the wages prescribed by the award did amount to wages as defined by S. 2(vi) of the Act. On that view the writ petition filed by the appellant was dismissed. It is this order which the appellant seeks to challenge before us by its present appeal by spicial leave.

4. Section 2(vi) as it stood at the relevant time, provides inter alia, that wages means all remuneration, capable of being expressed in terms of money, which would, if the terms of the contract of employment, express or implied, were fulfilled be payable. Mr. Setalvad for the appellant contends that before it is held that the wages prescribed by the award fall under S. 2 (vi), it must be shown that they constitute part of the terms of the contract of employment, either express or implied. The terms in question need not be expre