Scope of equality before law and equal protection of law.

This is an application for issuing a writ of certiorari to quash the order of the Additional Commissioner for Workmen’s Compensation, Madras, dated 23rd July, 1951. The petitioner is the South India Bank, Ltd. The first respondent was a clerk in the office of the petitioner. On 25th September, 1950, he was served with a notice of termination of his employment. In the said notice it was stated that on account of retrenchment his services were terminated with effect from 1st October, 1950. On 18th October, 1950, he preferred an appeal under section 41 (2) of the Madras Shops and Establishment Act, 1947 (hereafter called the Act) to the Labour Commissioner, Madras, questioning the validity of the termination of service. The Additional Commissioner for Workmen’s Compensation, after making the prescribed enquiry and after hearing the parties, held that the discharge of the applicant was not for a reasonable cause and set aside the order of the bank discharging the petitioner. The bank filed the aforesaid writ for quashing that order.

Learned counsel for the petitioner made a three-prolonged attack on section 41 of the Act based on Article 14 of the Constitution of India which guaranteed to every person equality before the law and equal protection of the laws in the territory of India. It was said that the provisions of the Act made a discrimination between employee and employee and employer and employer and also conferred on the Commissioner a naked arbitrary power to interfere with the right of the employer to discharge the employee. To appreciate the contentions raised; it will be convenient at the outset to read the relevant sections of the Act and to consider the case-law on the subject.

"Section 2(5): ‘employer’ means a person owning or having charge of the business of an establishment and includes the manager, agent or other person acting in the general management or control of an establishment.

Section 2(3): ‘Commercial establishment’ means an establishment which is not a shop but which carries on the business of advertising, commission, forwarding or commercial agency, or which as a clerical department of a factory or industrial undertaking or which is an insurance company, joint stock company, bank, brokers’ office or exchange and includes such other establishment as the Provincial Government may by notification, declare to be a commercial establishment for the purposes of this Act.

Section 2(12): ‘Person employed’ means (iii) in the case of a commercial establishment other than a clerical departmentof a factory or an industrial undertaking a person wholly or principally employed in connexion with the business of the establishment, and includes a peon.

Section 5: Notwithstanding anything contained in section 4, the Provincial Government may by notification apply all or any of the provisions of this Act to any class of persons or establishments mentioned in that section other than those mentioned in clauses (c) and (f) of sub-section (1), and modify or cancel any such notification.

Section 6: The Provincial Government may, by notification exempt either permanently or for any specified period, any establishment or class of establishments, or person or class of persons, from all or any of the provisions of this Act, subject to such conditions as the Provincial Government deem fit.

Section 41(1): No employer shall dispense with the service of a person employed continuously for a period of not less than six months, except for a reasonable cause and without giving such person at least one month’s notice or wages in lieu of such notice, provided, however, that such notice shall not be necessary where the services of such person are dispensed with on a charge of misconduct supported by satisfactory evidence recorded at an inquiry held for the purpose.“

The Act was passed to provide for the regulation of conditions of work in shops, commercial establishments, restaurants, theatres and other establishments and for other purposes, the