Supreme Court of India

Bijay Cotton Mills Ltd. v. State of Ajmer

Whether the Minimum Wages Act, which makes it an offence to pay less than the minimum wages fixed under it, puts unreasonable restrictions on employers and workers.

What the Court decided

Each point is this library's summary, followed by the Court's own words, checked word for word against the Supreme Court's typed copy of the judgment (JUDIS file 888). The pinpoint gives the page of the Supreme Court Reports and the margin letter (A to H) printed beside the line where the words begin.

1. Restraints on freedom of contract that secure minimum wages and protect workers against exploitation are not unreasonable, and employers cannot complain of having to pay minimum wages even where workers, out of poverty, would work for less.

   If the labourers are to be secured in the enjoyment of minimum wages and they are to be protected against exploitation by their employers, it is absolutely necessary that restraints should be imposed upon their freedom of contract and such restrictions cannot in any sense be said to be unreasonable. On the other hand, the employers cannot be heard to complain if they are compelled to pay minimum wages to their labourers even though the labourers, on account of their poverty and helplessness, are willing to work on lesser wages.

2. An employer's good intentions, or difficulty in paying, are irrelevant: they are no reason to strike the law down.

   If it is in the interest of the general public that the labourers should be secured adequate living wages, the intentions of the employers whether good or bad are really irrelevant.

   Individual employers might find it difficult to carry on the business on the basis of the minimum wages fixed under the … Act but this must be due entirely to the economic conditions of these particular employers. That cannot be a reason for the striking down the law itself as unreasonable.

3. Consulting committees and advisory bodies, on which employers and employees are equally represented, is an adequate safeguard against hasty or capricious fixing of wages by the Government.

   In the committees or the advisory bodies the employers and the employees have an equal number of representatives and there are certain independent members besides them who are expected to take a fair and impartial view of the matter. These provisions in our opinion, constitute an adequate safeguard against any hasty or capricious decision by the "appropriate Government."

4. The restrictions, though they interfere to some extent with the freedom of trade or business, are reasonable and in the interest of the general public.

   In our opinion, the restrictions, though they interfere to some extent with the freedom of trade or business guaranteed under article 19(1) (g) of the Constitution, are reasonable and being imposed in the interest of the general public are protected by the terms of clause (6) of article 19.