Nagendra Prasad Singh, J.

1. The petitioner in this writ application is a public limited company which carries its business at ranchi. It is a factory within the meaning of the term as defined in the Employees State insurance Act, 1948 (Act 34 of 1948), (hereinafter to be referred to as the Insurance Act ). Being a factory several persons are employed as employees thereof. In this writ application a prayer has been made for quashing the two communications, dated 29 February 1972, addressed by the Regional Director of the employees State Insurance Corporation, patna, a Corporation constituted under the insurance Act (hereinafter to be referred to as the Corporation) to the Collector, Patna. In the aforesaid two communications, the regional Director of the said Corporation has stated that amounts of Rs 13,197 and rs.10,216.5i which were liable to be paid by the petitioner-company as the employers special contribution and employees contribution, respectively, under the provisions of the insurance Act have not been deposited. As the aforesaid amounts have not been deposited on behalf of the petitioner-company, they should be recovered as appellant of land revenue under the provisions of this insurance Act read with S.5 of the Revenue recovery Act, 1890 (hereinafter to be referred to as the Revenue Act ). Copies of the aforesaid two communications have been annexed to the writ application and marked at annexures 2 and 3, respectively.

2. According to the petitioner, it is not liable to pay any such contribution under the provisions of the Insurance Act and the demand for realization of the same is per searbitrary and without any authority in law. According to the case of the petitioner, in order to raise the production, the management introduced job incentive scheme on 16 March 1965. Under that scheme the bonus was to be given to different groups of workmen as an incentive for higher production. A copy of the said scheme is annexure 1 to the writ application. This incentive bonus was to be paid to different groups of workmen over and above what they were entitled as wages, but at no stage the amount paid under this scheme to the workmen formed part of their wages so as to attract the provisions of the Insurance act.

3. It is not in dispute that the question of contribution in respect of such payments will arise only if such payments are held to be part of wages. "wages" has been defined under s.2 (22) of the Insurance Act as follows :

" wages means all remuneration paid or payable in cash to an employee, if the terms of the contract of employment, express or implied, were fulfilled and included any payment to an employee in respect of any period of authorized leave, lockout, strike which is not illegal or lay-off and other additional remuneration, if any, paid at intervals not exceeding two months, but does not include- (a) any contribution paid by the employer to any pension fund or provident fund, or under this Act ; (b) any travelling allowance or the value of any travelling concession ; (c) any sum paid to the person employed to defray special expenses entailed on him by the nature of his employment; or (d) any gratuity payable on discharge.

It has been asserted on behalf of the petitioner that this incentive bonus is neither paid under the terms of the contract of employment, express or implied, or as any other additional remuneration. It is just an ex gratia payment which can be altered, modified or withdrawn at the discretion of the management and in that view of the matter by no stretch of imagination it will be deemed to be wages for the purpose of applicability of the provisions of the Insurance Act. Learned counsel pointed out that from Cls.2, 6, 8 to 10, 13, 14 and 18 of the scheme (annexure 1) it is apparent that it is for the management to make the scheme applicable to a particular group of workmen ; it is up to them to revise it at their own discretion and even to delete the same as and when they think it pr