RAVI S.DHAVAN - (1.) MESSRS Super House Limited, Engineering Division, 7-A Jajmau, Kanpur is company and is hereinafter referred to as such, otherwise employer of respondent no. 4 Satish Kumar Mishra its employee. The employee laid a claim under the Payment of Wages Act by splitting it into arrears of wages and wages based on incentive. The claim it appears ultimately was allowed so that a recovery certificate chased the employer which is Annexure 19 being order dated 31 August 1990 in Payment of Wages Case No. 471 of 1989 ; Satish Kumar Mishra v. MESSRS. Super House Limited, Kanpur.
(2.) THE Company as an employer has sought a writ of certiorari to question the validity of the order, by saying that it is not maintainable on the ground that what the respondent no. 4 claims as an employee, is not wages. THE submission is apparently correct but on record the entire legal submission has been taken. The Court is satisfied that certiorari needs to be invoked in this matter. What is wages is defined under the Payment of Wages Act, 1936. On what is not wages is also defined in the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965. A substantial part of the claim i.e. Rs. 80,000/- has been claimed on the basis of incentive wage. If such wages are wages then there is no need for the court to interfere with the order which has been impugned. In the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 Section 2 (21) of this Act defines -'Salary or Wage". This definition is produced below : "2. (21) "Salary or Wage" means all remuneration (other) than remuneration in respect of overtime work) capable of being expressed in terms of money, which would, if the terms of employment, express or implied, were fulfilled be payable to an employer in respect of his employment or of work done in such employment and includes dearness allowance (that is to say, all cash payments, by whatever name called paid to an employee on account of a rise in the cost of living), but does not include- (0 ....... (ii) ...... (iii) ...... (iv) any bonus including incentive, production and attendance bonus). (v)...... (vi)...... (vii) any commission payable to the employee" . Thus, the legislature has clearly intended that any payment representing salary or wage which is in the nature of incentive or production or attendance bonus does not come within the definition of salary or wage. Further, the legislature has also intended in the aforesaid enactment that any commission payable to an employee is also outside the definition of salary and wage. All that this implies is that salary or wage connected with incentive or if a productivity linked payment in the nature of commission is outside the definition of the expression "salary or wage.". The definition of 'wages' under the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 excludes bonus Putting the two definitions together and making them compatible and consistent with the two legislations, aforesaid, the claim which the respondeat no 4 has made on the employer in the nature of incentive wages, productivity linked or commission, is certainly not salary or wage, but may be bonus.
(3.) THUS, from the record it is clear that the jurisdiction of the Prescribed Authority under the Payment of Wages Act was wrongly invoked and incorrectly exercised: In so far as the sunn of Rs. 80,000/- is concerned, to this extent the order of 31 August, 1990 in Payment of Wages Case No. 67 of 1988 needs to be corrected as it is in error. In so far as the balance of the amount of Rs. 969.20 is concerned this matter shall be subject matter of an appeal. The amount will be deposited by the petitioner, in accordance with law. prior to the appeal being filed and it may exercise the option of appeal within 30 days from today. The petition, thus, succeeds. The order of 31 August 1990, Annexure 19 to the writ petition, stands corrected by a writ of certiorari to the extent of the observations which have been made by the court as above.;