BADLU PRASAD Vs. TIRJUJI SITARAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this letters patent appeal the only question for decision is whether the Single bench was right in holding that the gratuity payable to an unskilled labourer by his employer at the time of his retirement is "wages" for the purpose of Section 60 (1) (h) Civil Procedure Code and as such not liable to attachment. Simple as this question is, the parties have not been able to place any answer in reported decisions. But in the light of general principles the Single Bench, in second appeal in an execution case, has held that gratuity is really a form of wages for that purpose, thereby reversing the decision of the District Judge in appeal that it is not; which in its turn was in variation of the executing Court's view that it is, and as such not attachable.

(2.) IT has been held throughout that the judgment-debtor is an unskilled labourer; so it is unnecessary to say anything more on that point. In all the Courts it was thought helpful to examine the definition of the word "wages" in different enactment; but this is not free from confusion because, in several of them the word has been used in a sense more or less limited, for the purposes of that particular law. In fact, we have no separate Act on wages generally so called; here we are dealing with "wages" as one of the several incidental topics in the Civil Procedure Code which is of course a general law. Wages of labourers is one of the many not-attachable properties.

(3.) ACTUALLY, the inclusion or exclusion of such payments as bonus and gratuity in the definitions in different enactments is not quite uniform, For example, in the minimum Wages Act the exclusion is of gratuity payable on discharge, the discharge not being quite equivalent to "the termination of employment" in the particular cases covered by the exclusion in the Payment of Wages Act. In the industrial Disputes Act on the other hand, the exclusion is worded similarly to what is contained in the Payment of Wages Act. In the Employees Provident Fund act the notion is of basic wages and there is an exclusion of a number of items mentioned in Section 2 (b) (ii) which mentions bonus and any other similar allowance payable. But the very notion of a basic wage is clearly narrower than "wages" generally speaking. In the parallel enactments regarding State Insurance, the exclusion is similar to what is contained in the Minimum Wages Act. In the workmen's Compensation Act which was enacted as long ago as 1923 there is no special reference to gratuity or as for that matter even bonus the obvious reason is that since that enactment welfare legislation has made very rapid strides.