An employer is entitled to deduct wages for the whole or any part of the period during which an employee is absent from duty.

1. :- This special appeal is directed against the order of the learned single Judge, dated September 27, 1982, summarily dismissing the S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 809 of 1982.

2. A notice to show cause was issued in this appeal on January 6, 1983. Thereafter the respondent led a reply to the special appeal. Since the matter involves an important question of law, with the common consent of both the parties the arguments were heard in detail in the main appeal, at the admission stage.

3. The appellant was working in the respondent Bank and was posted at M.I. Road Branch in the month of January, 1979, and was assigned the duties of shroff and godown keeper. The appellant alleged that he attended his duties on 10th and 11th January, 1979 and his attendance was marked in the register on both the days and according to the Bank authorities the appellant absented from duties on both the days without permission. The case of the Bank further was that the appellant on January 10, 1979 entered the Bank premises with about ten persons in the morning and went to the office of the manager and thereafter left the office. Again on January 11, 1979, he worked upto 2.30 p.m. and absented himself from duty thereafter. The Bank deducted two days wages of the appellant treating him as absent from duty.

4. Aggrieved by this deduction of wages the appellant preferred a petition before the Payment of Wages Authority, Jaipur under Sections 15(2) and (3) of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"). This petition was contested by respondent No. 1 and the respondent justified the deduction. Since there was a dispute about the fact of working in the Bank the Payment of wages authority thought it proper to hold a detailed enquiry into the matter. The appellant had submitted two affidavits in detail on which he was cross-examined also. The respondent also submitted the affidavits of its erstwhile manager and other members of the staff who were cross-examined in detail by the appellant. The payment of wages authority after detailed and protracted enquiry came to the conclusion that the petitioner worked for half an hour on January 10, 1979 and for four and half hours on January 11, 1979, and calculating his daily wages it held that five hours deduction of wages for these two days was illegal and the appellant was entitled to get Rs. j14.50 as his five hours salary for the aforesaid two days. The appellant feeling aggrieved by the order of the payment of wages authority filed S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 809/82 in this court praying that the order of the payment of wages authority, dated December 28, 1981 in so far as it disallowed the wages to the petitioner be quashed and that he should be ordered to be paid the balance of deducted wages. This writ petition was summarily dismissed by the learned single Judge against which this special appeal has been filed.

5. It is contended before us by the learned Counsel for the appellant that the payment of wages authority had only to see whether the deduction ; made by respondent No. 1 was in accordance with the provisions of the Act or not and it had no jurisdiction to make a moving enquiry itself on the ground as to for how much period the employee remained on duty on 10th & 11th January, 1979. It was further contended that the employer did not give reasonable and proper opportunity to the appellant to explain the charge of absenting from duty levelled against him. It was further contended that the payment of wages authority has not appreciated the scope of Section 9 of the Act. It is submitted that the provision of Section 9(2) of the Act only provides that the amount of such deduction shall in no case, bear to the wages payable to the employed person in respect of wage period for which the deduction is made a larger proportion than the period for which he was absent bears to the total period. The learned Counsel submitted that there must be some contract or condition of service w