FACTS IN BRIEF :- The Respondent before the Supreme Court was an erstwhile employee of the Appellant company, who during the period of her employment with the Appellant was working as a ‘confidential lady stenographer’ complaining that during the period of her employment after the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 came into force, she was being paid remuneration at the rates less favourable than those at which remuneration was being paid by the company to the Stenographer to the male sex in its establishment for performing the same or similar work. She, therefore, made a claim for recovery of an amount equivalent to the difference between the remuneration which she was being paid and the remuneration paid to the male sex Stenographers who had put in the same length of service during the period of the operation of the Act.
ARGUMENTS:- The company opposed the petition on the grounds that the lady stenographers who had been doing the duty as confidential stenographers attached to the senior executives of the company were not doing the same work which the male were discharging and that there was no discrimination on account of sex. It was also contented that the difference in salary was due to the settlement that has been reached between the union and the company.
JUDGMENT:- The Supreme Court, considering the impact caused by Convention Concerning Equal Remuneration for Man and Woman Workers for Work of Equal Value (adopted by the General Conference of the International Labour Organization) of which India was one of the parties and also the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, observed that that whether a particular work was same or similar in nature to another work could be classified on three considerations. These were; (a) the authority should take a broad view; (b) in ascertaining whether any differences were of practical importance, the authority should take an equally broad approach, for the very concept of similar market implies differences in detail. These small differences should not defeat a claim of equality on trivial grounds; (c) One should look at the duties actually performed and not at those theoretically possible.
Upon these considerations, the Court held that the Confidential Lady Stenographers were doing the same work or work of similar nature as defined by Sec. 2(h) of the Act as the male stenographers were performing and therefore her claim was entitled to succeed.
FOR COMMON MAN:- The Supreme Court coming harshly upon the employer declared in categorical terms that it shall not accept any discrimination between males and females as regards payment of wages was concerned when they were performing the same tasks. The Court declared that in view of mandate under Articles 14 and 39(d) of the Constitution and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, the liability to pay irrespective of sex was mandatory on the employer. If an employer violated it, could be prosecuted for the same.
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