LogIn with SUPREME COURT e@JOURNAL subscription for full text / Download
question of law – Test of proportionality – The refusal of this Court to go into the question of law in such cases, cannot be treated as tantamounting to answering the question of law in a particular manner – At times, this Court refuses to go into the questions of law, when a single individual armed with an order in his favour from the High Court is pitted against the State – Whenever the State or instrumentalities of State come up with appeals challenging small benefits granted to individual liti-gants, this Court applies the test of pro-portionality to see whether the quantum of benefits granted to the individual con-cerned, justifies the examination of the question of law, at the cost of that little man from a far off place – The refusal of this Court to go into the question of law in such cases, cannot be treated as tanta-mounting to answering the question of law in a particular manner – practice and procedure.[Para 15]
(ii) Practice and procedure – interim order – It is a fundamental principle of law that a party who is in enjoyment of an interim order, is bound to lose the benefit of such interim order when the ultimate outcome of the case goes against him.
Held, Merely because of the fortuitous circumstance of the Voluntary Separation Scheme coming into effect before the transferred cases were finally dismissed by this Court by an order dated 25.04.2003, creating an illusion as though the last drawn pay included this ad hoc payment, it is not possible to go against the fundamen-tal rule that the benefits of an interim order would automatically go when the party who secured it, failed in the final stage. [Para 20]
(iii) Payment of Gratuity Act 1972 S. 2(s)- “wages” under Section 2(s) of the very same enactment, as follows: “We clarify that wages will mean and included basic wages and Dearness Allowance and nothing else”. Straw Board Manufacturing Co. Ltd. vs. Its Workmen, (1977) 2 SCC 329, relied. [Para 21]