MUMBAI: Bombay High Court has said the Maharashtra government is bound by statutory provisions to undertake a review of minimum wages payable to workers in the powerloom sector at least once in five years.
A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice B P Colabawalla on February 2 heard a public interest litigation filed by Anna Patil highlighting the inaction on the part of the State government in not revising the rate of minimum wages applicable to labourers in the powerloom sector.
His advocate Akshay Patil argued that since 1986 the minimum wages payable to workers were as low as Rs 300/- per month in municipal corporation areas and in its periphery and upto Rs 250/- in municipal council areas and others.
The State government had issued notification proposing to fix the minimum wages for the workers in the power loom sector but no final notification was being issued.
The government’s advocate submitted a copy of the January 29 notification issued by the Industries, Energy and Labour Department revising the minimum wage for workers in the powerloom sector.
But Patil pointed out that the last revision prior to this was made in 1986. He referred to provisions if section 3 (1) of the Minimum Wages Act which states that the appropriate government shall review, at such intervals as it may think fit but not exceeding five years, the minimum rates if wages fixed and revise them. He said the government is “duty bound” to review the revision of minimum wages for workers in the powerloom sector atleast once in five years but this was not done between 1986 and 2014. He urged that ths court direct the government to faithfully implement the statutory mandate contained in the Act.
The bench said the submissions made by Patil require acceptance.”In fact, the State government is bound by the above statutory provisions to undertake review of the minimum rates of wages payable to the workers at least once in five years,” it noted. Disposing of the PIL, the court directed the government “to undertake such review, so as to make the next revision, if any, effective before December 2019.”
TOI | Feb 27, 2015
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