Karnataka HC Upholds 2017 Minimum-Wage Rates And 6% Interest For Textile Workers, Rejects Mills’ Appeal

Minimum wages for three scheduled employments—Cloth Dyeing and Printing, Textile (Silk), and Spinning Mills—were revised by final notifications dated 30 December 2017. The State withdrew those notifications in March 2018; a Division Bench later set aside the withdrawal, revived the 2017 notifications, and held a subsequent notification dated 31 October 2019 inoperative, while preserving the State’s power to revise wages in accordance with the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

On 17 January 2023, the State issued notifications revising wages by applying a 14% increase to the 2019 rates. The Union challenged those notifications. The Single Judge quashed them, directed payment of wages under the revived 2017 notifications with 6% interest, and ordered a fresh revision exercise.

The Karnataka Textile Mills Association appealed.

Under Sections 3(1)(b) and 5(1)(b) of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, minimum wages must be revised in accordance with the Act, and the proposal procedure—including publication in the Official Gazette to invite objections—is mandatory; stakeholder meetings cannot substitute for that statutory step.

The State’s power to revise wages under Section 5(2) does not permit reliance on a notification judicially declared inoperative as the basis for a new determination.

The Division Bench’s final judgment in W.A. No. 1520/2019 revived the 30 December 2017 notifications and affirmed workers’ entitlement to the wages and 6% interest on unpaid differences; that determination was confirmed by a coordinate Bench and attained finality after dismissal of the SLP.

Section 69(3) of the Code on Wages, 2019, read with Section 6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, preserves accrued rights, liabilities, and pending proceedings despite repeal.

The Court held that the State’s 2022 meetings and consultations did not satisfy the mandatory Gazette-publication requirement under Section 5(1)(b), so the 2023 notifications were procedurally defective.

They were also founded on the 2019 rates, which had been declared inoperative, and therefore could not serve as the statutory baseline.

The direction to apply the revived 2017 notifications and award 6% interest was consistent with the final and binding prior adjudication.

Repeal did not extinguish accrued rights or prevent completion of the court-directed process, and the fresh revision was appropriately constrained to take effect no earlier than 13 April 2020.

The reference in the Single Judge’s order to the “Payment of Wages Act, 1948” was treated as a typographical misdescription.

It dismissed the appeal and confirmed the order quashing the 17 January 2023 notifications, preserving workers’ entitlement to wages under the revived 30 December 2017 notifications with 6% interest on unpaid differences, and requiring a fresh wage-revision exercise.