Case: Works Manager, Central Railway Workshop,Jhansi Vs. Vishwanath And Ors

. This appeal by special leave is directed against the order of a learned Single Judge of the Allahabad High Court affirming on revision under Section 115 Civil P. C. the order of the learned Additional District Judge, Jhansi, who had allowed the respondents appeal from the order of the learned City Magistrate, Jhansi, made on an application presented by the respondents under Section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act IV of 1936. The City Magistrate was the "authority" appointed under Section 15 and the District Court was the court of appeal under Section 17 of the said Act. The respondents through the Assistant Secretary of the National Railway Mazdoor Union Work Shop Branch, Jhansi had asserted in their application under Section 15 that they were workers within the meaning of Section 2 (1) of the Factories Act (63 of 1948) and complained that they were denied wages for overtime work done by them on the erroneous ground that they were not workers within the aforesaid provision. The learned Magistrate held that the respondents had been entrusted with purely clerical duties and they were not connected in any manner with the manufacturing process. On this conclusion their application was dismissed.2. On appeal the learned Additional District Judge disagreed with this view and came to the conclusion that the work done by the respondents was incidental to or connected with the manufacturing process. It was observed in the order that some of the respondents were entrusted with the duty of checking the time of work of each worker in the workshop, a few others were time-keepers and the remaining respondents prepared account sheets on the basis of the time sheets and did other work incidental to the running of the work-shop including payment of wages to the staff of the workshop and the office. The High Court on revision, as already observed, affirmed the order of the learned Additional District Judge.

Reasoning: Section 2 (k) of the Factoriesdo not think they can be of much assistance to us. The decision inHaydon v. Taylor, (1863) 122 ER554 noticed in this book at first sight appeared to us to be of some relevance, but on going through it, we do not find it to be of much help in constructing the statutory provisions with which we are concerned. Similarly the decision in FrederickHayes Whymper v. John Jones Harney, (1865) 144 ER 436seems to be of little guidance.The Factories Act was enacted to consolidate and amend the law regulating labour in factories. It is probably true that all legislation in a Welfare State is enacted with the object of promoting general welfare; but certain types of enactments are more responsive to some urgent social demands and also have more immediate and visible impact on social vices by operating more directly to achieve social reforms. The enactments with which we are concerned, in our view, belong to this category and, therefore, demand an interpretation liberal enough to achieve the legislative purpose, without doing violence to the language.The definition of "worker" in the Factories Act, therefore, does not seem to us to exclude those employees who are entrusted solely with clerical duties, if they otherwise fall within the definition of the word "worker". Keeping in view the duties and functions of the respondents as found by the learned Additional District Judge, we are unable to find anything legally wrong with the view taken by the High Court that they fall within the definition of the word "worker". Deletion of the word "whatsoever" on which the appellant s counsel has placed reliance does not seem to make such difference because that word was, in our view, redundant.