Payment of Wages Act, 1936
Section 17: Appeal
The Payment of Wages Act, 1936 was repealed and replaced by the Code on Wages, 2019 from 21 November 2025. It still applies to matters and proceedings from before that date, as the repealing law provides.
(1) [An appeal against an order dismissing either wholly or in part an application made under sub-section (2) of section 15, or against a direction made under sub-section (3) or sub-section (4) of that section] may be preferred, within thirty days of the date on which [the order or direction] was made, in a Presidency-town *** before the Court of Small Causes and elsewhere before the District Court—
(a) by the employer or other person responsible for the payment of wages under section 3, if the total sum directed to be paid by way of wages and compensation exceeds three hundred rupees [or such direction has the effect of imposing on the employer or the other person a financial liability exceeding one thousand rupees], or [(b) by an employed person or any legal practitioner or any official of a registered trade union authorised in writing to act on his behalf or any Inspector under this Act, or any other person permitted by the authority to make an application under sub-section (2) of section 15, if the total amount of wages claimed to have been withheld from the employed person exceeds twenty rupees or from the unpaid group to which the employed person belongs or belonged exceeds fifty rupees, or]
(c) by any person directed to pay a penalty under [sub-section (4)] of section 15. [(1A) No appeal under clause (a) of sub-section (1)] shall lie unless the memorandum of appeal is accompanied by a certificate by the authority to the effect that the appellant has deposited the amount payable under the direction appealed against.]
[(2) Save as provided in sub-section (1) any order dismissing either wholly or in part an application made under sub-section (2) of section 15, or a direction made under sub-section (3) or sub-section (4) of that section shall be final.] [(3) Where an employer prefers an appeal under this section, the authority against whose decision the appeal has been preferred may, and if so directed by the court referred to in sub-section (1) shall, pending the decision of the appeal, withhold payment of any sum in deposit with it.
(4) The court referred to in sub-section (1) may, if it thinks fit, submit any question of law for the decision of the High Court and, if it so does, shall decide the question in conformity with such decision.]
Source: India Code (Legislative Department), the text of the Act as it stood before its repeal. Words in square brackets [ ] were inserted or substituted by later amending Acts, and *** marks words omitted by an amendment. The amendment footnotes are not reproduced here. Official text on India Code.