- (1.) THE petitioner No. 1 is a Union of the Labourers and petitioner No. 2 is its President and in this petition, they have claimed the minimum wages to be paid to the labourers who were employed for carrying out the projects under the Jawahar Rozgar Yojna and the labourers were employed in the present case for two works, i. e. construction of boundary wall of Primary School at Akhalon Ki Dhani and for construction of incomplete boundary wall of the Primary School at Dodiyal. The order in this respect of the District Rural Development Agency, Jodhpur dated May 2, 1992 has been placed as Annex. 1 on record. It is stated that the labourers that were working on daily rate basis on the famine relief works under the above said scheme were denied the basic minimum wages. The work commenced on these two works from June 6, 1992 and completed on July 15, 1992 and the members of the petitioner Union had been employed for the works listed at Section Nos. 85 and 96 of Annex. 1.
(2.) THE labour so employed at the said works were to be paid their wages on the muster roll basis and the grievance is that the labour were paid their wages much less than the minimum wages payable to the labour under the law. The work was stated to have been executed under the supervision of respondents No. 4 and 5 i. e. Vikas Adhikari and the Junior Engineer. Some complaints are stated to have been made by the workers and the villagers of Mageria projecting their grievance and hardship in respect of the wages being paid to them and these complaints/representations have been placed as Annexs. 2 and 3 on record. As it appears an Assistant Engineer of the District Rural Development Agency, Jodhpur was deputed to enquire and report in respect of the work done and look into the grievances of the labour. The report submitted by him is Annex. 4 on record. A challenge has also been made as the minimum wages were fixed on the strength of a notification Annex. 5 on record and it is said that it was an attempt on the part of the Government to justify the payment of wages at a much less rate than the minimum wages payable to the labour and the said notification is not only illegal but unconstitutional also. The Jawahar Rozgar Yojna has been included in the Scheduled employments and the minimum wages under the notification dated May 7, 1985 were fixed at Rs. 11/-, which were revised by the notification dated May 25, 1991 (Annex. 5) and the Government of Rajasthan suspended the procedure prescribed under Section 5 of the Minmum Wages Act, 1948 (referred to hereinafter as 'the Act') and fixed the minimum wages in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 26 (2) of the Act and the labour employed on piece wages was entitled to Rs. 14/- as minimum guaranteed time wages. It is further said that the minimum wages payable to the labour engaged on the construction work were Rs. 22/per day and the members of the petitioner Union were entitled to similar payment, whereas they had been paid Rs. 14/- only per day and the action was sought to be justified with reference to the notification Annex. 5. It was alleged to be a colourable exercise of power to deprive the labourers of their minimum wages. It has further been averred that the labour was not piece rated workers nor it could be so for the construction work of a boundary wall. There could be no segregation of work in pieces and there was, thus, no question of labour having been employed in the present case on piece wages.
(3.) IN reply filed by the respondents No. 1 and 5 it is stated that the petition was misconceived. The notification Annex. 5 had been issued under Section 26 (2) of the Act and therein the procedure prescribed under Sub-section (2) fully arms the appropriate Government for special reasons, if it thinks so fit by notification for such period as it may specify the provision of the Act or any of them shall not apply to any class of employees employed in the Scheduled employments in the locality where the work is to be carried out. The procedure laid under Section 5 can be relaxed and the employees engaged on the scheduled, employment of Jawahar Rozgar Yojna scheme were not entitled to seek the desired relief. The labour is said to have been paid the wages on the basis of the work done by them and not on the basis of daily wages or time wages. However, if, the person employed under the scheme gets wages less than Rs. 14/- on account of the work done by him Rs. 14/- is guaranteed as wages subject to having worked for the whole day. A separate written-statement was filed by the respondent No. 5 inter alia taking up the same pleas as of respondent No. 1 detailed above. The allegations that they were even paid less than the prescribed wages was denied. The scheme was purely of temporary nature to provide livelihood to those who were without any source as a famine relief.;