Remedy u/s 20 also available to past employee.

This is a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution to revise the order of the Labour Court of Coimbatore in M.W.P. No. 80 of 1957, dated 31st December, 1957.

On 19th October, 1957, 32 persons who claimed to be workers in an estate called the Wakefield Estate applied through the President of the Neelamalai Plantation Workers’ Union to the Labour Court at Coimbatore for certain directions under section 20 (3) of the Minimum Wages Act. Their case was that they had been working in Wakefiled Estate from March, 1957, to September, 1957, and that they had not been paid the wages due to them under the Minimum Wages Act. They claimed that a sum of Rs. 1,153-3-0 was due to them in the aggregate and prayed that directions be given to the management of the Wakefield Estate to pay them this money.

The Manager of the Estate filed a counter in which he stated:

“None of the applicants is entitled to claim the difference in wages claimed as none of the petitioners is employed by this respondent”.

The workers filed a rejoinder to the effect that “the petitioners are workmen employed by the respondent”. The respondent filed an additional counter in which he admitted that some of the applicants had worked in his estate for some days in March, 1957; but he categorically asserted that none of the workers had worked in his estate on any day from April to September, inclusive. The Tribunal held that the workers were entitled to the amount they claimed and issued the directions prayed for. The management has now come to this Court to have this order quashed.

The first question that arises for determination is whether any of the respondents actually worked in Wakefield Estate from April to September, 1957, inclusive. Of the 32 petitioners, 10 were examined as W.Ws. 3 to 12. If we leave them out for the moment there would be 22 of the petitioners left. To show that any of them worked in Wakefield Estate at any time from April to September, 1957, inclusive, there is extraordinarily little evidence. Learned counsel for the respondents was able to draw my attention only to two sentences in the evidence of W.W. 12 as constituting the evidence on this point. One sentence was in the chief examination which ran as follows:

“Through till Deepavali, I have been working. The persons whose names you now read are all workers who were all regularly working here till Deepavali”.

The other sentence was in cross-examination and it ran:

“All the workers who figure in this petition and whose names were read just now all have been working only in our estate”.

W.W. 12 who gave these two answers is an ignorant and illiterate woman who does not know even her age. The record does not show what names were put to W.W 12 when she was examined in chief. It will also be noticed that so far as the answer she gave in cross-examination is concerned, it does not indicate what the period of time was during which these persons worked in Wakefield Estate. If these 22 persons actually worked in Wakefield Estate from April to September inclusive, it is really surprising that no better evidence was forthcoming. Not one of these persons went into the box to say that he or she actually worked in the estate during that period. Not one of the 9 persons who were examined as W.Ws. 3 to 11 stated that any of these 22 persons worked in the estate. I may mention here that name of none of these persons appears in Exhibit M-4, the acquittance roll maintained by the Wakefield Estate for the period from April to September, 1957. Certain comments were made on this register and to those I shall return presently. At the moment it will be sufficient to mention that name of not one of these persons appears m the register.

So far as W.Ws. 3 to 12 are concerned, they did no doubt say that they worked in the estate from April to September, 1957. But there is nothing more than their word of mouth and to support it; there is no evidence whatever; the name of not one of these persons appears in Exhibit M-4.