The Remaining Provisions of the Code on Wages

In one line

The Code's own machinery is the only route to wage money, the employer must prove he paid, and no worker can sign his rights away.

In exam wording: Chapter IX of the Code on Wages 2019 contains the general provisions. Section 57 bars a civil suit for the recovery of minimum wages, deductions, discrimination in wages and bonus so far as the sum claimed forms the subject of a claim under section 45, has been the subject of a direction, has been adjudged under the Code, or could have been recovered under the Code. Section 59 places on the employer the burden of proving that the dues have been paid. Section 60 makes null and void any contract by which an employee relinquishes his right to any amount or to bonus. Section 61 gives the Code effect notwithstanding any inconsistent law, award, agreement, settlement or contract of service. And sections 62 to 68 deal with delegation, the actual-offender defence, protection of the employer's Government deposits, Central directions, savings, rules and the removal of difficulties.

Why the law has this at all

A wage statute can be defeated in three ordinary ways, and Chapter IX blocks all three.

The first is the parallel remedy. If a worker may sue in the civil court for his wages as well as claim under the Code, the employer will insist on the civil court, which is slow, costs court fees, and needs a lawyer. Section 57 closes it: the Code's machinery is exclusive for the sums it covers.

The second is the burden of proof. In the ordinary civil case the person who asserts must prove, and a worker asserting non-payment would have to prove a negative against an employer who holds all the records. Section 59 reverses it, and section 50 is what makes the reversal fair: the employer is required by law to keep the register, the muster roll and the wage slips that would prove payment, so if he has them he can produce them and if he has not, that is his own default.

The third is the signature. Historically the commonest defeat of a wage law was a receipt for the full amount signed by a worker who received less, or a term of employment by which he "agreed" to a lower rate. Sections 60 and 61 together make that impossible: the surrender is void, and the Code beats the contract, the settlement, the agreement and even an award.

The rest of the Chapter is the ordinary furniture of a modern Indian statute: good-faith protection for officers, delegation, rule-making with parliamentary laying, and a removal-of-difficulties power with a three-year sunset. Two sections are less usual and worth attention: section 63, which lets an employer name the actual offender and escape, and section 64, which protects money the employer has deposited with the Government from attachment by everyone except his own employees.