1. This petition challenges a decision of the Chief Judge of the Small Cause Court, Bombay, by which he held that the Authority under the Payment of Wages Act had no jurisdiction to entertain the application made by the petitioner and 116 other against the Naval Dockyard for payment of part of their wages illegally deducted. The facts briefly are that these 117 persons were employed as lorry drivers in the Indian Naval Dockyard end from May 1945 to July 1947 their wages were Rs. 100/-per month.

In August 1947 their wages were reduced from Rs. 100/- to Rs. 70/-. On 31-12-1947 rules were framed by the Governor General under Section 241(2), Government of India Act and these rules were issued in a notification and under this the wage scale for the lorry drivers was fixed at Rs. 60-75. It appears that these lorry drivers were asked to elect as to whether they would accept this wage scale and also if they did accept, the wage scale was to operate from 1-1-1947. They elected to accept this wage scale.

As a result of the election they were given the top of the grade viz. Rs. 75/- and Rs. 25/- were given to them as personal pay. The result was that their Wages were brought up to the wages they were getting on 1-1-1947 viz., Rs. 100/- per month. The grievance of these employees was that from August 1947 their wages were reduced to Rs. 80/- and they were paid Rs. 75/- and only Rs. 5/- as personal pay and, therefore they went before the Authority under the Payment of Wages Act, contending that the deduction of Rs. 20/- every month was an illegal deduction and that the employer should be asked to refund this amount.

The Authority, after considering the evidence before him came to the conclusion that the contract between the parties was that the employer Was liable to pay only Rs. 80/- and not Rs. 100/-as claimed by the employees. The employees went in appeal to the Small Cause Court and the learned Chief Judge came to the conclusion that in view of the contention raised before the Authority, he had no jurisdiction to decide the application made by the employees on merits. He, therefore, dismissed the appeal. It is against that order that the employees have now come on this petition.

2. Mr. Sules contention before us is that the Chief Judge should have heard the appeal on merits and should not have dismissed it on the preliminary ground that the Authority had no jurisdiction to entertain this particular application.

In order to decide this question we have carefully to bear in mind the nature of the jurisdiction that the Authority under the Payment of Wages Act exercises. He constitutes a Court or a Tribunal of summary jurisdiction and the clear object of the Legislature in setting up this Court or Tribunal was to give facilities to the employee to recover his wages as expeditiously as possible.

Gross delays in a Civil Court are notorious and it was but proper that a workman getting small wages should not be prevented from recovering them merely because the employer took up a refractory attitude and drove the employee to a civil Court Co litigate his rights. Therefore, it could never have been the object of the Legislature that the Authority under the Payment of Wages Act should try and decide complicated questions which should ordinarily and normally be heard by a Civil Court. What the authority has to determine is whether there has been an illegal deduction of wages.

In order to determine that he has to determine what are the wages to which the employee is entitled and again to determine that, he must decide what the contract between the employer and the employee is which entitles the employee to receive wages. Under these circumstances, there is no dispute between the employer and the employee as to the contract which regulates the conditions of service of employment. The dispute is as to what the employee is entitled under that contract. The employer may take up the contention that a certain amount is not due to the employee under the