Summary
Haryana’s minimum-wage notifications exceeded statutory power insofar as they deemed skill upgrades by experience, fixed a one-year training limit, covered unpaid trainees and specified security supervisory posts, and prohibited wage components as allowances. Paid trainees and contractor-employed workers remained covered. The Court preserved the remaining notification provisions and barred employers from recovering amounts already paid; workers could pursue other remedies for their grievances.
Issues
- Whether wage-fixing power authorised deemed skill upgrades and a compulsory training period.
- Whether unpaid trainees and specified security supervisory posts were covered employees.
- Whether contract workers were covered and allowance segregation could be prohibited.
- What effect partial invalidity had on prior payments and remaining provisions.
Provisions considered
- Sections 2(h), 2(i) and 4, Minimum Wages Act, 1948Definitions and wage-composition provisions limited coverage to statutory employees and did not authorise the challenged alterations of non-wage contractual terms or blanket prohibition of allowance components. (¶¶ 9–13, 15–18)
Held
- The Act authorised fixing or revising minimum wages, rather than altering other contract terms. Deeming workers into higher skill categories solely through experience and fixing a maximum one-year training period exceeded that power. (¶¶ 11–13, 18)
- The specified security inspector, officer and supervisor posts did not perform work within Section 2(i). Trainees employed without hire or reward were outside the notification; minimum wages for trainees appointed for reward were expressly preserved. (¶¶ 13, 18)
- Employees hired through contractors fell within the statutory scheme. The challenge to coverage of contract workers failed. (¶ 14)
- A blanket prohibition on dividing wages into allowance components was invalid. Where an employer had already met remuneration components, double payment could not be required. (¶¶ 15–16, 18)
- The unaffected notification provisions continued. Employers could not recover payments already made under the notifications, and workers retained access to other lawful remedies. (¶ 17)
Result
Appeals allowed to the specified extent. Challenged deemed categorisation, security-supervisory inclusion, unpaid-trainee coverage, one-year training limit and prohibition on allowance components invalidated. Remaining notification provisions preserved; recovery of payments already made prohibited, with workers’ other remedies open.