33General penalty for offence

Save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act, any person who contravenes any of the provisions of this Act or of any rule made thereunder, or fails to wages or compensation in accordance with any order of the appellate authority passed under clause (b) of sub-section (2) of section 31, shall, be punishable, for the first offence, with fine which may extend to two hundred and fifty rupees and for a second or any subsequent offence with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than one month or more than six months or with fine which shall not be less than one hundred rupees or more than five hundred rupees or with both.

(2) (a) Any employer who fails to reinstate any employee in accordance with the order of the appellate authority passed under clause (b) of sub-section (2) of section 31, shall be punishable with fine which may extend to two hundred and fifty rupees.

(b) Any employer, who, after having been convicted under clause (a), continues, after the date of such conviction, to fail to reinstate an employee in accordance with the order mentioned in that clause, shall be punishable, for each day of such default, with fine which may extend to twenty rupees.

(c) Any Court trying an offence punishable under this sub-section may direct that the whole or any part of the fine, if realised, shall be paid, by way of compensation, to the person, who, in its opinion, has been injured by such failure.

(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (4 of 1936), with regard to the definition of wages, any compensation required to be paid by an employer under clause (b) of sub-section (2) of section 31 but not paid by him shall be recoverable as delayed wages under the provisions of that Act.

(4) It shall be no defence in a prosecution of any person for the contravention of the provisions of section 3 that any manufacturing process connected with the making of beedi or cigar or both was carried on by such person himself of by any member of his family or by any other person living with or dependent on such person.