MANMOHAN SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Since common questions of law arise in this Civil Writ Petition No. 3137 of 1989 and the connected civil writ petitions, i.e., C.W.P. No. 4254 of 1988, 3707 of 1989, 5503 -A of 1989, and 3599 of 1988, these are being disposed of by this common judgment. In all these petitions the challenge is to the addition to the Schedule appended to the Minimum Wages Act of the workers employed in private educational institutions and to the fixation of minimum wages for various categories of employees.

(2.) REFERENCE to the relevant facts has been made from the pleadings in C.W.P. 3137 of: 1989:Petitioners Manmohan Singh and Neelam Rani are the proprietors and Principals of Saini Public School, Atam Nagar, Ludhiana and Best High Model Saini School, Kartar Nagar, Ludihiana respectively. The challenge to the Schedule appended to the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 (for short, the Act) is on the ground that the State Government has to fix the minimum wages for certain categories of employees on the recommendation of the committee constituted under Section 9 of the Act. The State Government did not nominate any of the representatives of the unaided and unaffiliated schools. The representatives nominated on the Committee did not watch the interests of the unaided and unaffiliated schools. The Act only applies to industrial institutions and not to the institutions imparting education to the young generation; that while fixing the minimum wages the State Government did not take into consideration the nature of job or the duration for which the employment was given.

(3.) THE Act purports to prevent exploitation of labour and for that purpose authorises the appropriate Government to take steps to prescribe minimum rate of wages for employments covered by the Schedule appended thereto. In an under -developed country, which faces the problem of unemployment on a very large scale, it is not unlikely that labour may offer to work even on starvation wages. The policy of the Act is to prevent the employment of such sweated labour in the interest of general public and so in prescribing the minimum wage rates, the capacity of the employer need not be considered. What is being prescribed is minimum wage rate which a welfare State assumes every employer must pay before he employs -labour. (See Crown Aluminum Works v. Their Workmen, 1958 -I -LLJ -1)