GAJENDRAGADKAR - (1.)THESE three appeals arise out of three respective writ petitions filed by the appellants in the High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan challenging the orders passed by the authority under the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (4 of 1936) (hereafter referred to as the Act) on their respective applications made before it. The appeals raise common questions of law and are based on substantially similar facts. We would, therefore, refer to the facts in Civil Appeal No. 331 where the appellant is Ganeshi Ram, and deal with the common question. Our decision in Civil Appeal No. 331 will govern the decision of the two other companion appeals.
(2.)THE appellant was employed in the service of the then Jodhpur Railway. He was suspended from service on 3/02/1950 and finally removed from service on 24/02/1950. He preferred an appeal against this order terminating his service, but it appears that while his appeal was pending the impugned older of removal from service was set aside on 30/04/1954 and he was reinstated on 1/05/1954. On the same day, however, he was resuspended and an enquiry was held against him. Eventually on 7/12/1954, he has been reinstated in service. When the order of removing him from service was set aside on 1/05/1954, the Assistant Personnel Officer directed that the said order of removal should be cancelled and Ganeshi Ram should be put hack on duty with immediate effect and posted as gangman in permanent extra gang MWT. THE order then added that the period of Ganeshi Ram's absence from the date of his removal from service to the date he was put back to duty will be treated as leave without pay. After the fresh enquiry was held and it was decided to reinstate Ganeshi Ram a similar order was passed by the Divisional Personnel Officer, Jodhpur Division, on 7/12/1954. This order stated that it was decided to reinstate Ganeshi Ram with immediate effect and it was added that the period of his absence from 24/02/1950 to 30/04/1954, which had already been treated as leave without pay would be so treated and that for the periods of his suspension from 3/02/1950 to Febr 23/02/1950 and from 1/05/195 4/12/1954, he would not be entitled to any more payment. In the present case we are concerned with the appellants claim for wages from 24/02/1950 to 30/04/1954.
At this stage we may add that rule 2044 (F. R. 54) (1) provides, inter alia, that where a railway servant who had been dismissed, removed or suspended is reinstated the authority competent to order the reinstatement shall consider and make a specific order, amongst other things, regarding the pay and allowance to be paid to the railway servant for the period of his absence from duty, and it authorises him to make such order in respect of such period as he may deem fit. Since this point has not been disputed before us it is unnecessary to set out the relevant rule and to consider its effect.

The appellant applied to the District Magistrate Jodhpur, who is the authority under the Act, under S. 15 alleging that it was a case of illegal deduction of his wages and claiming an older for the payment of proper amount to him for the said period. The defence raised by the Railway was that the impugned deduction was allowable under S. 7 (2) (h). It was a deduction required to be made by an authority competent to make such an order, and so it was urged that the application made by the appellant for the recovery of his wages during the period in question was misconceived. The authority who heard the application upheld the plea raised in defence and dismissed the application. It was held that the deduction made was authorised and permissible and so there was no cause of action for the claim made by the appellant. It is the correctness and validity of this order passed by the authority under the Act that was challenged by the appellant by his writ petition before the Rajasthan High Court.

(3.)IN the High Court four questions were raised for decision by the parties before it. The appellant and his colleagues who had made similar writ petitions before the High Court had impleaded to their writ petitions as respondent 1 the authority under the Act and as respondent 2 the General Manager. Northern Railway Baroda House, New Delhi. IN the writ petitions thus filed it was prayed that a writ of certiorari and other appropriate writ or direction or order to quash the decision of the authority should be issued and the authority may be asked to issue direction for the payment of proper amounts due to the petitioners. It was urged by respondent 2 before the High Court that the writ petitions were incompetent because an appeal lay against the order of the authority. It was also urged on the merits that the deductions in question were justified and as such there was no substance in the claim made in the writ petitions. IN other words, the plea was that the authority was fully justified in rejecting the applications made before it by the petitioners. On these pleadings four points were framed for decision by the High Court. The High Court held that the writ petitions were not incompetent, but on the merits it came to the conclusion that the orders passed by the Assistant Personnel Officer, Jadhpur Division and the Divisional Personnel Officer, Jodhpur Division, amounted to deductions required to be made by order of an authority competent to make such an order and as such they fell under S. 7 (2) (h) of the Act. That being so, according to the High Court the writ petitions could not succeed on the merits.
The position under the Act is clear. Under S. 7 certain specified deductions are permitted to be made and in respect of the deductions thus permitted or authorised to be made there can be no claim under S. 15. In other words, claims for recovery of wages can be validly made under S. 15 (2) and awarded under S. 13 (3) only where it is shown that the impugned deduction is not authorised or justified by S. 7. Thus, it is only in respect of unauthorised or illegal deductions that claims can be made before the authorities by an aggrieved workman.