Labour exploitation is violation of human rights and it is necessary to keep check on factories in order to avoid such violation. In this regard there are various legislative provisions in place to prevent such exploitation. These provisions prescribe maximum working hours for every factory and industry for any given day or week. But there are certain circumstances, which forces the worker to work more than the permissible working hours. In such cases, the workers are compensated through ‘overtime allowance’, which is at least double of the wages. The concept of Overtime Allowance is protected by the Section 59 of the Factories Act,1948 (Factories Act) and the same provision has also been carried over to the new labour code in the Section 27 of The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020. However, there was an ambiguity regarding the applicability of these provisions on government servants. This issue has been well settled in the matter of Security Printing & Minting Corpn. of India Ltd. v. Vijay D. Kasbe, (2023 SCC OnLine SC439).
In the instant case, The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and the Hon’ble Bombay High Court (HC) held that as per Section 59 of the Factories Act the double over time allowance is applicable on the person who is employed as Supervisors at Security Prating & Minting Corpn. of India Ltd. (SPMCIL), which is a company under the Department of Economic Affairs, government of India.
However, the Hon’ble Supreme Court observed that SPMCIIL is a wholly owned government company and accordingly the employees are to be treated as government servants. It is for this reason that the instant matter has been considered as a ‘service matter’ under the purview of Section 3 of Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 and was considered under the jurisdiction of CAT.
It is pertinent to note that, as per the Rule 11 of Fundamental Rules, 1922, all the government servants have to be at the disposal of government at all the time without any claim for additional remuneration. Due to the explicit debar by Rule 11 for additional remuneration, it is observed that there was no scope for the supervisors to seek payment of double Over Time Allowance. The Hon’ble Supreme Court also referred to the Rule 100 of Maharashtra Factories Rules, 1963, which specifically exempts supervisors from receiving any kind of over time allowance.
We understand that the nature and the condition of the work of the government servant and that of the workmen at factory doesn’t hold much commonality. It is for this reason why the legislature had to come up with different statutory protection for the workmen from different workspace. It can be observed that, certain perks and allowances are exclusive to the government servants whereas the workers under Factories Act doesn’t have such access. For example, the Government Servants receives an automatic and periodic wage revision through Pay Commissions. While, on the other hand, the wage revision of workers governed by the Factories Act is done through the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, under which only the minimum wage paid to any worker of any given class or classes of factories doing any particular type of work is revised by the State or Central Government after every five years, if such revision is necessary. Though there are other benefits, which are exclusive to the workers governed under Factories Act, which doesn’t spread to the Government Servants such as weekly hours, weekly holidays, daily hours, limitations to night shifts etc. In the case of Security Printing & Minting Corpn. of India Ltd. (supra), if the government Servants were to be allowed to be governed under the Factories Act, they would enjoy the selective benefits and liabilities as per their convenience.
The judgement given in the case of Security Printing & Minting Corpn. of India Ltd. (supra) holds great significance in today’s time as it explains in depth about the different kind of employments, possible ambiguity in understanding the terms like workmen and worker under different statutes, and the scope of Factories Act along with applicability of double allowance on the government servants under the Factories Act.
Authors- Nivedita Jha & Deepit Sheel
[The Authors are Associate and Intern, respectively, in Corporate Law division in Juris Prime Law Services]