- (1.) JUDGEMENT Raj Kumar has filed this revision against the judgment and decree of the learned District and Sessions Judge, Moradabad, whereby he set aside, in appeal, the judgment and direction of Sri M. C. Gupta, the Authority under the Payment of Wages Act.
(2.) THE brief facts giving rise to this revision are as follows: The applicant was employed as a clock-winder in the Moradabad Division of the Northern Railway. He was discharged from service on the 27th of November 1953 by the Divisional Superintendent, Moradabad. Thereupon the applicant filed a suit seeking a declaration that his discharge was unlawful and that he continued to be in service throughout. The suit was dismissed by the trial court, but was decreed, on appeal on the 13th of November, 1957 in the terms prayed for. When the Railway authorities did not reinstate him the applicant made several representations to them for his reinstatement, and, finally by the order dated the 12th September, 1958 the applicant was allowed the work from the next day. Thereafter on the 4th February, 1959 the applicant moved the application giving rise to this application under Section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act (hereinafter called the Act) alleging that as he was paid lesser wages for the period between the 13th September, 1958, and the 31st January, 1959, and was not paid any wages for the period for which he was held to have been unlawfully discharged, he was entitled to a total sum of Rs. 7952.72 under those two heads from the Railway Administration. The application was heard by Sri M. C. Gupta, who was the authority appointed under the Act to deal with such an application. He accepted the case of the applicant and issued a direction to the Railway Administration to pay the applicant the sum claimed by him. The Railway Administration preferred an appeal to the learned District Judge, Moradabad, and the latter by his judgment in question set aside the judgment and decree of Sri M. C. Gupta and allowed the appeal. Hence this revision by the applicant. In order to appreciate the contention of Dr. Gyan Prakash, the applicants learned counsel, it is necessary to refer to one further fact. It is common ground that the applicants application under Section 15 of the Act was filed beyond the period of six months laid down in the first proviso to that section and Sri M. C. Gupta condoned that delay under the second proviso to that section. The first contention of Dr. Gyan Prakash was that the learned District Judge had no jurisdiction under Section 17 of the Act to set aside that order and to hold the claim to be time-barred. His second contention was that as on a correct appreciation of the law, the case of the applicant was one of illegal deduction, and as the Railway Administration apprised the applicant for the first time on the 27th January, 1959 that they did not propose to pay him the alleged deductions, the period of six months limitation under the first proviso to Section 15 of the Act did not start running before the 27th January, 1959 and as the application in question was made within eight days of the said intimation, it could not be held to have been filed beyond time. I shall therefore proceed to examine the merits of these contentions in the order stated above.
(3.) NOW so far as the first contention is concerned, it is enough to say that whatever force it might have possessed at one time it possesses none after the decision of this Court in Divisional Superintendent, Northern Railway Allahabad v. Hukum Chand Jain, AIR 1967 All 459. In this case a Division Bench of this Court, after considering the relevant provisions of the Act and the various authorities bearing upon it, held that the propriety of an order admitting an application after the prescribed period of six months can be challenged in appeal against the direction made under Section 15(3) of the Act. As I am in respectful agreement with this view, the first contention advanced on behalf of the applicant fails and is dismissed.;