Siddhartha Varma, J. - (1.) This writ petition has been filed against the order dated 4.2.2013 by which it was directed that the petitioner had to pay to the respondent no. 3 wages for 18 days in the month of December 2012 i.e. from the Ist December till the 18th of December, 2012. Further, the writ petition has been filed against the recovery order issued thereafter under the Uttar Pradesh Industrial Peace (Timely Payment of Wages) Act, 1978, (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The respondent no. 3 filed an application on 9.1.2013 stating that the wages for the month of December 2012 be paid to the employees of the petitioner. Upon notices being issued to the petitioner, objections were filed by it on 24.1.2013. In it, the petitioner had stated that the Labour Commissioner, Saharanpur Region, Saharanpur, himself was holding conciliation meeting and that he was aware of the fact that the employees of the petitioner had not reported for work in the month of December and, it had, thus, stated that there was no requirement to produce any evidence regarding the fact that the employees had not worked. The petitioner had also stated that only an admitted wage bill could have been ordered to be paid but for the month of December, 2012 as employees of the petitioner had not worked at all, there was no question of any wage bill for the month of December, 2012. However, the impugned order dated 4.2.2014 was passed and the petitioner assails it on the following grounds:- I. As per section 3 of the Act only if the Labour Commissioner was satisfied that the employer of the Industrial Establishment was in default of payment of wages could the wage bill be paid. He submitted that in the instant case when the employees had not worked there could not have been a Wage Bill at all. II. Learned counsel for the petitioner, further, submitted that the Deputy Labour Commissioner, Saharanpur Region, Saharanpur, wrongly had stated that it was not in dispute that the employees had worked with effect from 1st December, 2012, to the 18th December, 2012. In fact, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the attendance register went to show that in the month of December, barring two employees no other employee, had attended work and, therefore, he submits that definitely, it was not admitted to the petitioner that the employees had attended work from 1st to 18th December, 2012.
(2.) Learned counsel for the petitioner relied upon Section 3 of the Act and submitted that the moment the petitioner had disputed that the employees had not worked from the 1st of December, 2012, to the 18th of December, 2012, then the Labour Commissioner could not have acted as an adjudicator and could not have decided whether or not the workmen had worked and, therefore, he should have out right referred the matter to the proper forum i.e. the Labour Court or the Labour Tribunal for a proper Adjudication.
(3.) Learned counsel relied upon Section 3 of the Act and the same is being reproduced here as under:- 3. Recovery of wages in certain industrial establishments as arrear of land revenue. - (1) Where the Labour Commissioner is satisfied that the occupier of an industrial establishment is in default of payment of wages and that the wage-bill in respect of which such occupier is in default exceeds fifty thousand rupees, he may, without prejudice to the provisions of Sections 5 and 6, forward to the Collector, a certificate under his signature specifying the amount of wages due from the industrial establishment concerned. (2) Upon receipt of the certificate referred to in sub-section (1), the Collector shall proceed to realise, from the industrial establishment, the amount specified therein, besides recovery charges at the rate of ten per cent, as if such amount were an arrear of land revenue. (3) The amount realised under-section (2) shall, after deducting the recovery charges, be placed at the disposal of the Labour Commissioner who shall disburse,the same or cause it to be disbursed among the workmen entitled thereto. (4) Where the amount so realised falls short of the wages-bill in respect of which the occupier has been in default, the Labour Commissioner may arrange for disbursement of such proportion or respective proportions of the wages due to various categories of workmen as he may think fit. (5) The liability of the occupier towards each workman in respect of payment of wages, shall to the extent of the amount paid to such workman under this section stand discharged. III. Learned counsel further relied upon a decision reported in 1994 SC 536 (Modi Insdustries Ltd, vs. State of U.P. And others). Relying upon paragraph 4, he submitted that when there was a definite dispute between the parties as to whether the employees had worked with the petitioner or not in between the 1st of December, 2012 to 18th of December, 2012 then the matter should have been referred for an industrial adjudication before the proper forum. Since the learned counsel read out of the paragraph 4 of the judgement, the same is being reproduced here as under:- "4.On the facts of the present case, we are more than satisfied that there did exist a genuine dispute between the parties as to whose acts of omission or commission were responsible for the halting of the production in the factory for the period in question. This was put into issue before the Labour Commissioner by the appellant-company. The Labour Commissioner, in the circumstances, could not have proceeded to issue the certificate. He ought to have referred the parties to industrial adjudication which was the proper forum for the purpose. Under the circumstances, we set aside the impugned certificate dated April 29, 1991 issued by the Labour Commissioner.";