214 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
be difficult for anybody to imagine or to stipulate. Consequently the payment of wages to a discharged employee working in a seasonal factory would be indefinitely postponed if the provision as it now stands was not amended in the way suggested in the Bill. What we have therefore done by the amending Bill is to take away the word ‘working’ and substitute for the word ‘second’ the word ‘third’, so that where the factory is a seasonal factory or where the factory is a perennial factory every discharged workman will be paid on the seventh day and would not have to wait as he would have to in case the factory was seasonal factory and the Act stood as it is now.
Now, I come to clause 4 of the Bill. As Honourable Members will see clause 4 proposes to make certain amendments in section 7 of this Act. Section 7 is a section which lays down what deductions can be made from the wages of a workman. Honourable Members will see presently that the section as it stands now does not cover all legitimate cases of deductions. I will draw the attention of Honourable Members to what are the omissions in the present Act. For instance, the act as it stands now, or the section of the Act, does not cover the case of an employee who has left his employment, taken his provident fund and his gratuity and has lost the privileges which he would otherwise get if he had continued to be in service. It may be that for certain reasons, he had to resort to the expedience of obtaining a discharge from service in order to get his provident fund and his gratuity to meet certain economic demands that may be very pressing upon him. After that, he is re-employed and obviously he is anxious to get back all the privileges which he enjoyed before his discharge and his privileges depend upon whether or not he is prepared to return the provident fund which he had obtained and the gratuity which he got. The workman is willing and prepared for such deductions being made, but the law does not permit this. I think it will be agreed that such deduction should be allowed because it is in the interest of the employee himself. But as I said such a provision does not find a place in the act, as it now stands. Then, Sir, there are certain deductions which may be beneficial to the employee and the employee may be willing that the deductions may be made in order to cover such beneficial purposes. Again, there is no provision for allowing the workman voluntarily to agree to make deductions which he thinks are beneficial to himself. The law is made