Bhandari, J. - (1.) An Authority constituted under the Payment of Wages Act decided to entertain, a claim under Section 25-P, Industrial Disputes Act, on the ground that a claim for compensation put forward by a retrenched employee falls within me ambit of the expression "wages" as defined in Section 2, Payment of Wages Act. The employer is dissatisfied with the order and has come to this Court in revision.
(2.) The expression "wages" as defined in Section 2(vi) of the Act of 1936: "means all remuneration, capable of being expressed in terms of money, which would, if the terms of the contract of employment, express or implied, were fulfilled, be payable, whether conditionally upon the regular attendance, good work or conduct or other behaviour of the person employed, or otherwise, to a person employed in respect of his employment or of work done in such employment, & includes any bonus or other additional remuneration of the nature aforesaid which would be so payable, and any sum payable to such person by reason of the termination of his employment. .....".
(3.) This definition may for convenience be split up into three portions. The first clause declares that wages means all remuneration, which would, if the terms of the contract of employment, express or implied were fulfilled, be payable to a person employed in respect of his employment. This clause presents no difficulty whatsoever, for it declares in unambiguous language that an employee is entitled to receive the wages in accordance with the terms of his contract. The second clause enacts that the expression "wages" shall include any bonus or other additional remuneration of the nature aforesaid which would be so payable, i.e., payable in accordance with the terms of the contract. The third clause declares that the expression "wages" shall include 'any sum' payable to such person by reason of the termination of his employment. The language of this clause is wide enough to embrace not only a sum payable to an employee under the terms of a contract -- 'A. R. Sarin v. B. C. Patil', AIR 1951 Bom 423 (A) but also a sum payable to him under the provisions of a statute.;