B C DWIVEDI MINIMUM WAGES INSPECTOR MEHSANA Vs. TALUKA DEVELOPMENT OFFICER VIJAPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These four Civil Revision Applications raise a common question of law and hence it would be convenient to dispose of all of them by this common judgment. The petitioners in each of these four Civil Revision Applications is Government Labour Officer and Munimum Wages Inspector for Mehsana District and the respondents in each of these four applications are the Taluka Development Officer Vijapur Taluka Mehsana District and District Development Officer of the District Panchayat Mehsana. Certain employees working under the Taluka Panchayats and the District Panchayats were sought to be brought within the purview of the Minimum Wages Act 1948 and applications were made before the learned Civil judge (Junior Division) Vijapur who was the Authority appointed under sec. 20 sub-sec. (1) of the Minimum Wages Act 1948 for Vijapur Taluka. One of the questions was whether the employees who were working in the Panchayat service were employees under a local authority. Under the Minimum Wages Act 1948 sec. 2 sub-sec. (g) defines scheduled employment to mean an employment specified in the Schedule or any process or branch of work forming part of such employment. Entry 6 in the Schedule to the Act is in these terms:- Employment under any local authority. It cannot be gainsaid that the Taluka Panchayat and the District Panchayat of which respectively the Taluka Development Officer and the District Development Officer are the Executive Officers are local authorities. Under sec. 7 of the Gujarat Panchayats Act 1961 a Gram Panchayat a Nagar Panchayat a Taluka Panchayat and a District Panchayat is each of them a body-corporate and each of these Panchayats shall have a perpetual succession and a common seal and may sue and be sued in its corporate name. It was contended that whoever works in the service under any of these Panchayats is engaged in an employ. ment under a local authority and therefore would be governed by the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act 1948 The learned Authority under the Minimum Wages Act 1948 for Vijapur Taluka in each of these four cases held that the employee in question was in Government service whose services had been loaned or allocated by the Government to the District Panchayat or the Taluka Panchayat as the case might be but he was not holding an employment under any local authority and therefore the Minimum Wages Act would not apply to these employees.

(2.) At the time when the learned Authority under the Act decided these four matters the benefit of a judgment of a Full Bench of this Court in Shamji Karsan v. State XVI G.L.R. 313 decided on May 2 1924 was not available to the learned Authority. However in the light of that Full Bench decision it must be held that an employee who is working in the Panchayat service as constituted under the Gujarat Panchayats Act is a servant of the State of Gujarat and is not an employee working under the local authority. The Full Bench held that the decision of the Division Bench of this Court in G. L. Shukla v. State (1967) 8 G.L.R. 833 was good law and laid down the correct principles. The Full Bench also held that because of the special features which are to be found in the Gujarat Panchayats Act particularly in the provisions of secs. 203(4)(a) and 203(5) taken with the overall scheme relating to Panchayats service Panchayat service was a part of the service of the State and was an employment under the Government. The Rules to be made for the conditions of service of the Panchayat service under sec. 203 sub-sec. (4) shall contain a provision entitling servants of such cadres in the Panchayat service to promotion to such cadres in the State service as may be prescribed and under subsec. (5) such rules may provide for inter district transfers of servants belonging to the Panchayat service and the circumstances in which and the conditions subject to which such transfers may be made. These were the indicis and the special features under the Gujarat Panchayats Act 1961 alone with the scheme of the Act which led the Full Bench to hold that the Panchayat service is a service of the State and employees of the Panchayat service are holders of civil posts under the State. In view of this decision of the Full Bench it must be held in the instant case that though the Panchayat service may be constituted in one of the three modes mentioned in sec. 205 namely by direct recruitment by promotion or by transfer of a member of the State service to the Panchayat service in the ultimate result it is this Panchayat service which is part of the service of the State and every member of the Panchayat service holds a civil post under the State. So long as this decision of the Full Bench stands it must be held that the employees who are in Panchayat service and who are working with one or the other Panchayats constituted under the Gujarat Panchayats Act 1961 are not holding employment under the local authority but they are holding civil posts under the State and hence the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act 1948 are not applicable to them.

(3.) The learned Assistant Government Pleader relied upon the decision of the Supreme Court in Jalgaon Zilla Parishad v. Duman Govind Etc. & Ors. Civil Appeals Nos. 24 and 25 of 1968 which were decided along with three other allied matters by the Supreme Court on December 20 1968 This judgment was also considered by the Full Bench and it was pointed out that the employees in the particular case had become employees of the Zilla Parishads concerned and therefore they were governed by the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act. The Full Bench dealing with this judgment observed:- The special features of the Gujarat Panchayats Act 1941 which we have noted above do not appear to have been present in the enactment before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has not in terms held that the allocation was invalid because of alleged violation of Art. 311 and the Supreme Court held that on allocation the Kotwals had become employees of the respective Zilla Parishads to whose service they were allocated. The scheme of the Panchayat Act namely constitution of the separate Panchayat service which is the peculiar feature of the Act before us does not appear to have been present in the case before the Supreme Court and this decision of the Supreme Court given in the light of the special provisions of that Act can have to bearing no the Act before us. Thus the argument of the learned Assistant Government Pleader based on the decision in Jalgaon Zilla Parished v. Duman Govind Etc. & Ors. must be rejected and it must be held that the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act 1948 do not apply to members of the Panchayat Service constituted in accordance with the provisions of sec. 205 of the Gujarat Panchayats Act 1961