BALANCING EMPLOYER DISCRETION AND WAGE EQUALITY: AN INDIAN JUDICIAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

In India wage equality is one of the tenets of social justice and constitutional governance. Simultaneously, employers are given a reasonable level of leeway in remuneration depending on factors like ability, experience, output and organizational requirements. The paper will review the efforts made by the Indian judiciary to strike a balance between employer discretion and the constitutional requirement based on wage equality especially in the articles 14, 15, 16 and 39(d) of the Constitution of India. The paper identifies the changing meaning of the principle of equal pay of equal work by examination of judicial decisions, statutory and scholarly materials. The paper concludes that Indian courts tend to allow the discretion of the employer but they are open to reasonableness, nonarbitrariness and fairness. The paper concludes that the judicial intervention has been of importance in ensuring workers are not victims of wage discrimination and maintaining justifiable managerial autonomy