Case filed against company for late payment of wages

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: The High Court has quashed a case against the occupier and manager of a company who were booked under the Payment of Wages Act for late payment of wages.

A Magistrate court had treated the application-complaint submitted by an Assistant Director of Factories (Inspector) as a chargesheet and issued process against T Raghavendra Setty and KS Satyanarayana, the occupier and manager of Gauri Industries (Karnataka) Pvt Ltd.

The HC in its judgment on the petition filed by the two said, “No person can be subjected to trial for offences covered under the provisions of the Act, unless sanction is obtained. Even while under sanction, the authority is required to issue show-cause notice before granting sanction. Since sanction before presenting an application under Section 15(2) of the Act is a requisite condition, I am of the view that the cognisance taken by the learned Magistrate and thereby, the issue of process to the petitioner is bad in law.”

The petition filed by Setty and Satyanarayana in 2018 came up before the bench of Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum who disposed it recently.

It was argued that the Magistrate erred in taking cognizance without examining the fact that the application under Section 15(2) of the Act is submitted without securing sanction from the competent authority and therefore, the entire proceedings stand vitiated for want of sanction.

Agreeing with the contention, the HC said, “The learned Magistrate erred in treating the application as a charge sheet and since for want of sanction, it goes to the root of the case, the entire proceedings stand vitiated on this sole ground.”

Quashing the proceedings in the lower court, the HC said, “In that view of the matter, I am of the view that the proceedings pending in Cr Misc 88/2013 are liable to be quashed for want of sanction by the competent authority as indicated in Section 21 of the Act. As the application is submitted without affording an opportunity, the petitioners cannot be subjected to trial for the offences indicated in the application filed under Section 15(2) and if permitted, the same amounts to abuse of process. Hence, I am of the view that the proceedings are liable to be quashed.” 1974/2018