Amendment status not verified — confirm the current text below against the official source.
Hours of employment - (1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, no person shall be employed about the business of an establishment for more than fortyeight hours in any week and nine hours in a any one day. (2) On occasions of seasonal or exceptional pressure of work a person employed in an establishment may be employed about the business of the establishment in excess of the working hours specified in sub section (1): Provided that - (a) the total number of overtime hours worked by an employee does 15 THE PUNJAB SHOPS AND COMMERCIAL ESTABLISHMENT ACT, 1958 not exceed fifty within a period of 1[any one quarter]; and (b) the person employed overtime shall be paid renumeration at twice the rate of his normal wages calculated by the hours. Explanation - ‘Normal Wages’ for the purpose of proviso (b) means basic wages plus such allowances including the cash equivalent of the advantages accruing through the concessional sale of workers of foodgrains and other articles as the worker is for the time being entitled to, but does not included bonus. (3) No employer shall, on any day or in any week, employ about the business of the establishment any person who has been previously employed on that day or in that week in another establishment or a factory for a longer period than shall together with the time during which he has been previously employed on than day or that week in such another establishment or factory exceed the number of hours permitted by this Act. (4) In any proceedings against the employer of the establishment for a contravention of the provisions of sub-section (3) it shall be a defence to prove that the employer did not know and could not with reasonable diligence ascertain that the person was previously employed by the employer of the other establishment or factory. (5) No person shall work about the business of an establishment or two or more establishments or an establishment and a factory in excess of the period during which he may be lawfully employed under this Act. Hours of Employment-Overtime meaning of : Section 7 (2) of the Act only limits the maximum hours of work in a shop. But it does not impose any restriction upon the employer to fix a lesser number than provided in the said section. When the normal hours of work is admittedly 36 hours in week so any hours of work done beyond that normal hours i.e. 36 hours in a week must be regarded as "Overtime". [Carew and Co. Ltd. V/s. Sailaja Kanti Chatterji and others 1973 Lab IC 515 (Cal.)]. Likewise, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in a case Philips India Ltd. Vs. Labour Court Madras has also interpreted the meaning of over- time. Their lordship has decided that even though the expression "Overtime" is not defined in the Act, its connotation is unambiguous. In no uncertain terms it means in the content of working hours, period in excess of the prescribed working hours. The proviso to Section 14 (1) makes it abundantly clear that any work taken in excess of the working hours prescribed in the main part of sub-section (1) of Section 14 (Section 7 (2)