Judgment

JUDGMENT :- On October 16, 1968 the Government of India, Ministry of Labour, Employment and Rehabilitation, issued a notification, in exorcise of their powers under Sections 5(1)(a) and 9 of the Minimum Wages Act. appointing a committee to hold enquiries and advise the Central Government regarding -

(a) the fixation of minimum rates of wages for the first time under the said Act, and

(b) the revision of minimum rates of wages already fixed by the Central Government under the said Act."

in respect of the Employment in Manganese, Gypsum, Barytes and Bauxite Mines. Shri D. Venkatachalam, Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), New Delhi and Shri K. K. Bhatia, Director, Labour Bureau, Simla were appointed as independent members of the Committee while (i) Shri K. S. Mahapatra, Controller of Indian Bureau of Mines, Nagpur, (ii) Shri Dev Coomer Singhi, The Jhagrakhand Collieries Private Ltd., 14/4, Gariaghat Road, Calcutta-19, (iii) Dr. S. K. Das Gupta, Indian Aluminium Co. Ltd., 1, Middleton Street, Calcutta-16 (iv) Shri T. R. Goenka, Honorary Secretary General, Federation of Indian Mining Industries, 7, N. D. S. E. Part 1, New Delhi-3 and (v) Mr. S. G. A. Naidu, President of Mysore State Mine Owners Association, Bangalore, were appointed as representatives of the employers. Five other gentlemen were appointed as members of the committee to represent the employees. Thereafter, on May 19, 1969, after considering the advice of the committee, the government of India issued a notification fixing minimum rates of wages payable to certain categories of employees in the scheduled employment in Barytes, Bauxite, Manganese and Gypsum Mines. The notification fixing minimum wages was questioned by several owners of mines in writ petitions filed in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh. The notification was quashed by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh on the ground that the Committee on whose advice it was based was improperly constituted for two reasons : (1) Shri Venkatachalam and Shri K. K. Bhatia were Government employees in the Labour department and were, therefore, not truly independent so as to be eligible to be appointed to the Committee constituted under Sections 5 and 9 of the Minimum Wages Act; and (2) the so called representatives of the employers on the Committee as appointed were not representatives of the Barytes, Bauxite, Manganese and Gypsum mining industries and they were therefore ineligible to be appointed to the, committee to represent the employers of the particular scheduled employments.

2. We are afraid, we are unable to subscribe to the. view taken by the High Court. In our opinion, Government employees, who are entrusted with the task of implementing the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act, cannot, for that reason, be dubbed as interested and not independent persons. It may be that in a case where the Government itself is the employer in the particular scheduled employment, it may be possible to urge that Government employees are not independent persons (we express no opinion on that) but in a case where the Government itself is not an employer, we do not see any justification for holding that Government employees who are interested in the implementation of the Minimum Wages Act, for that reason only, become interested persons and cease to be independent. The independent persons contemplated by S. 9 of the Act are persons who belong neither to the category of employers nor to the category of employees, and there is no reason to think that Government employees whose task is merely to implement Parliamentary Legislation made pursuant to Directive Principles of State Policy and the states social obligations in that direction. are excluded. The term independent persons, it must be emphasised, is used in the section in contradistinction to the words persons representing employers and employees in the scheduled employments. We disagree with the view expressed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Narottamdas v. Gowarikar (1961) 1