Payment of wages for weekly holidays.

This is a petition for the issue of a writ of certiorari to call for the records in Minimum Wages Petition No. 26 of 1956 on the file of the Labour Court at Coimbatore and quash an order passed by that Tribunal, dated 20th December, 1957.

The Associated Cement Co., Ltd., carrying on the business of manufacturing cement at Madukkarai is the petitioner. The proceedings out of which this petition arises originated in an application under section 20 (2) of the Act filed by the Labour Inspector of the Central Government at Coimbatore before the Labour Court — which is the authority constituted under section 20 (1) of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 — for a direction under sub-section (3) of section 20, on the allegation that the respondent there, the Associated Cement Co., Ltd., had paid less than the minimum rate of wages to certain of the company’s employees.

The workmen to whom according to the Labour Inspector wages less than the minimum wages had been paid were those employed in lime stone quarries. The violation of the Minimum Wages Act and the Rules made thereunder was stated to consist in failure to pay wages for the weekly holidays for the period March, 1956 to June, 1956, to three employees whose names were set out in the annexure to the application. It was common ground that the application was filed as a test case, and that there were a very large number of other employees to whom also payments on the same basis had been made by the company.

There is no dispute that employment in stone-breaking or stone-crushing is an employment in a scheduled industry to which the Minimum Wages Act would apply. A Committee for the fixation of the minimum wages for stone-breaking and crushing operations had been set up by the Government of Madras on 26th September, 1950, under section 5 (a) of the Minimum Wages Act, and the Committee had, after an exhaustive enquiry fixed the minimum wages payable for workers in these industries. The basis upon which the Committee fixed this wage was to fix the minimum wage first for a month on the basis of the minimum requirements of the worker for a month of 30 days and to calculate the daily wage by dividing this sum by 26. It would thus be seen that the daily wage fixed had also taken into account payments for the weekly holiday to which the workmen were statutorily entitled. Subsequently, a second Committee was appointed, constituted by the same members as the first Committee to fix the rate of minimum wages for similar operations in mines, and the Committee submitted a report working out the minimum wage for workers in this industry on the same basis, that is, by taking the minimum monthly wage on the basis of 30 days in a month and dividing it by 26 so as to arrive at the daily minimum wage for the worker. The Government of Madras accepted The report of this Committee and passed a Government Order on 15th February, 1952, fixing the minimum rates for employment in stone-breaking carried on in mines. It is not necessary for the purpose of the points arising in this petition to go into the exact figures and hence I am not mentioning them. Subsequent thereto the Government of Madras promulgated on 24th June, 1953, rule 23 in conformity with this fixation of minimum wages. Rule 23, which was promulgated by the Madras Government was in the same terms as rule 23 of the Central Rules, 1950, on minimum wages promulgated by the Central Government on 14th October, 1950. Rule 23 ran:

"(1) Unless otherwise permitted by the Government no worker shall be required or allowed to work in a scheduled employment, on the first day of the week (hereinafter referred to as the ‘said day’) except where he has or will have a holiday for the whole day on one of the three days immediately before or after the said day. Every worker who shall be required or allowed to work in a scheduled employment on the said day shall be paid wages equal to his average daily wages during the week he has last worked.

Provided that the weekly h