Minimum wage fixation cannot alter contract terms or create dispute machinery beyond statutory authority.

The power under the Minimum Wages Act to fix or revise minimum rates of wages was confined to remuneration and did not extend to altering other contractual terms of employment. Clauses 1 and 2 of the notification, which fixed minimum wages, were valid. Clauses 3 to 7, however, went beyond wage fixation by creating machinery for disputes over rejected chhat bidis, their retention, and payment, and were therefore ultra vires. The doctrine of implied powers could not save them because the Act already provided enforcement remedies for minimum wage claims and did not authorise a separate adjudicatory scheme.

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Issues: Whether clauses 3 to 7 of the notification issued under section 5 of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 were within the power to fix or revise minimum wages, or were ultra vires because they regulated rejection of chhat bidis and modified contractual terms beyond wages.

Analysis: The power under the Act was confined to fixing or revising minimum rates of wages. The definition of wages proceeded on the basis that the other terms of the contract of employment remained to be fulfilled, and the Act operated only on remuneration, not on other contractual conditions. Clauses 1 and 2 validly fixed minimum wages, but clauses 3 to 7 went further and created machinery for deciding disputes about rejection of bidis, retention of rejected bidis, and payment for them. That subject fell outside section 5. The doctrine of implied powers could not sustain those clauses because the statutory scheme already provided remedies for claims relating to payment of minimum wages under sections 20 and 21, and no implied power could be read to alter the contract or create an adjudicatory mechanism for such disputes.

Conclusion: Clauses 3 to 7 were ultra vires and invalid, while clauses 1 and 2 remained valid.

Final Conclusion: The notification was sustained only to the extent of the revised wage fixation, and the provisions regulating chhat bidis and related dispute-resolution machinery were struck down as beyond statutory power.

Ratio Decidendi: A power to fix or revise minimum wages does not, by implication, authorise alteration of other contractual terms or creation of a separate mechanism for resolving disputes about rejected work where the statute confines the authority to remuneration and provides specific enforcement remedies.

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