(1) Save as otherwise expressly provided in this act, any person who contravenes any of the provisions of this act or of any rules made thereunder, or fails to pay wages or compensation. In accordance with any order of the appellate authority passed under sub-section (2) of section 37 of this act, shall be punishable, for the first offence with fine which may extend to fifty rupees and for a second or any subsequent offence with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three months or with fine which shall not be less than two hundred rupees or more than five hundred rupees or with both.
(2) (a) Any employer who fails to reinstate or re-employ any employee in accordance with the order of the appellate authority passed under sub-section (2) of section 37 of this Act, shall be punishable with fine which shall not be less than two hundred rupees.
(b) Any employer, who, after having been convicted under clause (a) continues, after the date of such conviction, to fail to reinstate or re-employ 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-five 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 affected by such failure.
(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (Central Act IV of 1936), with regard to the definition of wages, any compensation required to be paid by an employer under the provisions of this Act, but not paid by him shall be recoverable as delayed wages under the provisions of the said Act.
(4) It shall be no defence in a prosecution of any person for the contravention of the provisions of section 3 that any item of work relating to handloom weaving operation was carried on by such person himself or any member of his family or by any other person living with or dependant on such person.