JUDGMENT - (1) The question which arises for determination in these two applications, is whether compensation, payable to workers, who have been laid-off, under the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, is "wages" within the meaning of the payment of Wages Act. The term "lay-off" is defined in clause (kkk) of section 2 of the Industrial Dispute Act as meaning the failure, refusal or inability of an employer on account of shortage of coal, power or raw materials or the accumulation of tocks or the breakdown of machinery or for any other reason to give employent to a workman whose name is borne on the muster rolls of his industrial establishment and wo has not been retrenched. To put it briefly, lay-off therefore means the failure, refusal or inability of an employer to give employment to his employee. There is an Explanation to this cause, which states:

"Every workman whose name is borne on the muster rolls of the industrial establishment and who presents himself for work at the establishment at the time appointed for the purpose during normal working hours on any day and is not given employment bythe employer within two hours of his so presenting himself shall be deemed t

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