JUDGMENT
M.R. Agnihotri, J.
1. Haryana Apex Cooperative Bank Employees Union (Regd.) has approached this Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India by filing this writ petition through its President and General Secretary, for quashing the impugned order dated 3rd September, 1986 passed by the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana, whereby the benefit of overtime allowance has been withdrawn by the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana and the Haryana State Cooperative Bank Limited, respondents Nos. 1 and 2, respectively.
2. The petitioner is a Trade Union registered under the Trade Unions Act, 1926, and it represents the employees of the Haryana State Cooperative Bank Limited, Sector 17, Chandigarh. The respondent Bank is registered with the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana, respondent No. 1, under the Haryana Co-operative Societies Act, 1984. The Bank observes its working hours from 10 AM to 5 PM with lunch break for half an hour on all the days of the week except Saturdays, on Which day the timings are from 10 AM to 2 PM, the Bank being a “commercial establishment” within the meaning of Section 2(iv) of the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishment Act, 1958.
3. On 16th/19th September, 1980, the Bank issued an order (Annexure P-1) laying down certain guidelines “in order to streamline the payment of overtime devoted by the employees of the Bank”. Another order was issued on 10th October, 1983, by the Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Haryana, and the Bank thereafter started making payments of the overtime allowance to its employees, i.e. the members of the petitioner Union, in accordance therewith. However, on 3rd September, 1986, yet another order was issued by the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana, directing the Managing Director, the Haryana State Cooperative Bank Ltd., respondent No. 2, that the payment of overtime allowance to the employees working in the Bank should be made in accordance with the provisions of Section 7 of the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958, as applicable to Haryana, and not in accordance with the guidelines issued earlier. It is this order of the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana, which has been challenged in this writ petition by the petitioner Union, mainly on the ground that the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana was not competent, in law, to withdraw the benefits already enjoyed by the employees of the Bank, much less without affording an opportunity of being heard as the impugned order adversely affected the rights of the employees of the Bank who are members of the petitioner Union.
4. In reply to the writ petition, written statement has been filed by the respondent-Bank in which it has been pleaded that the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana, was competent to issue the necessary order and the Bank was competent, in law, to discontinue the benefits already granted to the employees as no opportunity of hearing was required for withdrawing the concessions granted and no right of any individual had been adversely affected.
5. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties and having examined their pleadings and the material on the record, I am of the considered view that the impugned order passed by the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana, is wholly contrary to law and the same deserves to be quashed by a writ of certiorari.
6. The Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana, respondent No. 1, wrongly interpreted Section 7(1) while issuing the impugned order dated 3rd September, 1986 (Annexure P-3), relevant extract wherefrom is reproduced below:–
Section 7(1) provides that no person shall be employed about the business of an establishment for more than 48 hours in any one week and 9 hours in any one day. The working hours of your institution are from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. with a lunch break of 1/2 hour, that is to say for 6V2 hours except on Saturday when the working hours are from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M., that is 4 hours…. any employee working in any of these institutions for less than 48 hours a week or for less than 9 hours a day would not be entitled to any overtime allowance in terms of the provisions of Section 7(2) of the Act ibid.
Section 7(1) of the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishment Act, 1958, is pari materia with Section 14(1) of the Tamil Nadu Shops and Establishments Act (36 of 1947), which provisions are reproduced below:–
Punjab Act of 1958 T.N. Act of 1947
"7. Hours of employment. 14. Daily and weekly hours
(1) Subject to the provi- of work: (1) Subject to
sions of this Act, no person the provisions of this Act,
shall be employed about the no person employed in any
business of an establish- establishment shall be re-
ment for more than forty quired or allowed to work
eight hours in any one week for more than eight hours
and nine hours in any one in any day and forty-eight
day. hours in any week:
(2) On occasions of seasonal Provided that any such per-
or exceptional pressure of son may be allowed to work
work a person employed in in such establishment for
an establishment may be any period in excess of the
employed about the busi- limit fixed under this sub-
ness of the establishment in section subject to payment
excess of the working hours of overtime wages, if the
specified in sub-section period of work, including
(1):- overtime work, does not
provided that: exceed ten hours in any day
(a) the total number of and in the aggregate fifty-
four hours in any week.
overtime hours worked by
an employee does not ex-
ceed fifty within a period of
any one quarter; and
(b) the person employed
overtime shall be paid re-
muneration at twice the rate
of his normal wages calcu-
lated by the hour.
7. Fortunately for the employees of the respondent Bank, Section 14(1) of the Tamil Nadu Shops and Establishments Act, 1947, which provision is similar to the one as contained in Section 7(1) of the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958, has been the subject-matter of interpretation by the Supreme Court in Philips India Ltd. v. Labour Court, Madras and Ors. 1985-II-LLJ-33, wherein their Lordships held as under (at 37-38):
A bare perusal of Section 14(1) would show that it prescribes a ceiling on working hours. Obviously, it cannot be interpreted to mean that the employer must provide maximum number of working hours as therein set out in the establishment governed by the Act. It is open to the employer to prescribe working hours for a day and total number of working hours for a week less than the ceiling prescribed by the statute. Section 14 puts an embargo on the employer’s right to prescribe working hours beyond therein prescribed subject, however, to its liability to pay higher rate of wages for the overtime work done.
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Section 14(1), therefore, upon its true construction, permits an employer to prescribe daily working hours not exceeding 8 hours a day and the total number of working hours at 48 in a week. By the proviso, the employer can take over time work if the working hours do not exceed 10 hours in any day and 54 hours in a week. The proviso makes it abundantly clear that any work taken in excess of the working hours prescribed in the main part of Sub-section (1) of Section 14 would constitute overtime work. 8 hours a day and 48 hours in a week would constitute normal working hours. Anything in excess of 8 hours a day but not exceeding 10 hours a day and 48 hours a week and not exceeding 54 hours a week will constitute overtime work.
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By reference to the statutory provisions and unhampered by precedents, it becomes clear that when normal working hours as permitted by Section 14(1) are prescribed by an employer for his employees working in the establishment to which the Act applies, wages for work in excess of such prescribed hours of work will have to be paid at the rate prescribed in Section 31. The framers of the statute provided the whole scheme by first putting an embargo on the maximum number of working hours payable at ordinary rates and then permiting overtime work upto the ceiling, simultaneously making it obligatory to pay overtime wages at the rate prescribed in the very statute.
Ordinarily, therefore, where an employer prescribes normal working hours less than the maximum permitted by the statute and if it seeks to take work in excess of its own prescribed number of hours of work, the employer renders itself liable to pay overtime wages at any rate higher than the ordinary rate of wages. As explained earlier, prescribed working hours is the normal time of work and anything in excess of it is overtime work.
8. In view of the above enunciation of law by the apex Court in the country, I allow this writ petition, quash the impugned order dated 3rd September, 1986 (Annexure P-3), passed by the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana, and by the issuing a writ of mandamus, direct the respondents to pay to the employees of the Bank represented by the petitioner Union, and other persons similarly situated, the overtime allowance along with the arrears thereof, as admissible to them and at the rates according to which they had been drawing earlier to passing of the impugned order, within three months from today. There shall be no order as to costs.