TMI Blog1958 (3) TMI 84X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... alf months wages subject to certain conditions of which only the sixth is material here. It runs as follows: Persons who are eligible for bonus but who are not in the service of the Mill on the date of the payment shall be paid in one lump sum by the 30th November 1949. In such cases, claims in writing should be made to the Manager of the Mill concerned. 6. Those operatives who made a claim before the date fixed above were duly paid but payment was refused to the third respondent, who applied much later, on the ground that the condition subject to which the award was made was not fulfilled. 7. The third respondent thereupon made an application before the first respondent, the Authority under the Payment of Wages Act. 8. Similar claims were made by the second, fourth and fifth respondents for a bonus for the year 1949. The Industrial Court awarded a bonus equal to two months' wages and in the sixth condition put the date as December 31, 1950. 9. By this time Labour Appellate Tribunals came into existence, so both sides filed appeals against the award to the Labour. Appellate Tribunal of Bombay. The appeals failed and the award was upheld. 10. After that, t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... it runs - 'Wages' means all remuneration..... which would, if the terms of the contract of employment, express or implied, were fulfilled, be payable, whether conditionally upon regular attendance, good work or conduct or other behavior of the person employed, or otherwise, to a person employed in respect of this employment or of work done in such employment, and 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, but does not include....... and then five matters that are not included are set out. 18. Now consider this clause by clause. 'Wages' means all remuneration. Is bonus a remuneration? We think it is. Remuneration is only a more formal version of payment and payment is a recompense for service rendered. 19. Now it is true that bonus in the abstract need not be for services rendered and in that sense need not be a remuneration; for example, there is a shareholder's bonus in certain companies, and there is a life insurance bonus and so forth. But that is not the kind of bonus contemplated here because the k ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed that as an Industrial Court can direct payment of bonus should an industrial dispute arise in that behalf, the matter falls within the definition. But does it? One of the matters that an Industrial Court might take into consideration before contract of awarding a bonus is whether all the terms of the contract of employment of have been duly fulfilled and it is possible that such a Court might refuse to award a bonus in case where the terms were not fulfilled, but it would not be bound by such a consideration and its right to make an award of bonus is not conditional on fulfilment of the terms of the contract of employment, whereas under the definition that is an essential ingredient. Therefore, even if due fulfilment of the terms of the contract of employment was to be one of the reasons for the award, the bonus so awarded would not be payable because the terms of the contract had been fulfilled but because of an industrial dispute and because in order to settle it, the Court awarded the bonus. 25. It is not necessary to analyse he definition any further (except for one clause) because, even if all the other ingredients are present, the clause we have just considered would ex ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... between one worker and his employer about the right to bonus would not necessarily lead to an industrial dispute. When an Industrial Court awards a bonus, independent of any contract, it does so only if there is an available surplus for a distribution of bonus and the amount of the award would depend on the extent of the surplus available for that purpose. Therefore, the fulfilment or other wise of the terms of the contract of employment is not an essential ingredient of an award of an Industrial Court. 30. In F. W. Heilger ; Co. v. N. C. Chakravarthi, the learned Judges of the Federal Court held that a bonus not payable under a contract of employment does not fall within the definition of wages in s. 2(vi) of the payment of Wages Act, as it stood before the amendment in 1957. We are concerned with the old definition here and not the amended one, so the present case is, in our opinion, covered by that authority. 31. It is true that no bonus had been awarded in Heilgers' case and that therefore there was no ascertained sum, whereas there is one in the present case, or rather a sum that is ascertainable, but that was one one of the grounds on which the learned Judges pr ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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