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Judgment
Chandra Pal Singh, J.
This appeal u/s 82(2) of the Employees'' State Insurance Act, 1948 (hereinafter called the Act) is directed by the Hukumchand Mills Ltd. (hereinafter called the Mill) against the decision of the Employees'' Insurance Court, Indore, in E. S. I. Case No. 28 of 1968 tried along with E. S. I. Case No. 26 of 1968 finding that the Employees'' State Insurance Corporation (hereinafter called the Corporation) being entitled to recover Rs. 6052.40 as employees'' state insurance contribution from the Mill, decreed the Corporation''s claim for that amount with interest at the rate of six per cent per annum from 25-7-1968 till its realization and the costs.
Appellant No. 1 is a public limited company. It is a textile Mill situated at Indore and a factory within the meaning of section 2(12) of the Act. Appellant No. 2 is its manager. Sometime before 27-9-1966 some of the members of the administrative staff including assistant accountant, senior accounts clerk, accounts clerk, despatch clerk, inward clerk, stenographer, typists, waste clerk, stores clerk, head jamadar and peons, totalling 26 (vide Ex. D. 4) used to work in some other building but have now started working in a new building at a distance of about 650 feet from the building of the factory. The Mill had not paid any employees'' state insurance contribution regarding these 26 persons. After some correspondence between the Corporation and the Mill, the Corporation after calling upon the Mill to show cause why the employees'' special contribution amounting to Rs. 6052.40 be not recovered from it, presented an application before the Employees'' Insurance Court, Indore u/s 75 of the Act and so did the Mill too. The parties before the Employees'' Insurance Court in the two cases (Nos. 26 of 1968 and 28 of 1968) requested the Court to consolidate the two cases and record common evidence. Consequently, the Court by its order of 19-12-1974 came to pass the impugned decree.
The respondent-Corporation''s objection, that a single appeal alone by the Mill is incompetent because the judgment in the other suit operates as res judicata, considering that the parties to the two cases had admittedly agreed before the Employees'' Insurance Court that the two cases be consolidated and tried together and the Court having actually consolidated the two cases, having tried them together and having given a common decision, is not tenable. The issues in the two cases were identical particularly of them the issue ; "Whether the provisions of the Act were applicable to the administrative staff of the Mill and hence the Corporation was entitled to a decree for Rs. 6052.40 (being the contribution for insuring the concerned employees under the Act) ?" The issues in the two cases were tried together followed by a common decision and decree. In these circumstances, one appeal alone, as preferred by the Mill, is competent.
The first contention for the appellant-Mill is that the duties performed by the 26 members of the administrative staff continuing to remain the same, they could not be covered by the Act merely because the office, wherein they were working before, has been shifted to the new building. Section 2(12) of the Act defines ''factory'' meaning any premises including the precincts thereof whereon twenty or more persons are employed or were employed for wages on any day of the preceding twelve months, and in any part of which a manufacturing process is being carried on with the aid of power or is ordinarily so carried on but does not include a mine subject to the operation of the Mines Act, 1952. Then the expressions ''manufacturing process'' and ''power'' have the same meaning assigned to them as in the Factories Act, 1948.
Their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Nagpur Electric Lights and Power Co. Ltd. Vs. Regional Director Employees State Insurance Corporation, etc., relying upon the case of Ardeshir H. Bhiwandiwala Vs. The State of Bombay, laid down as follows:
Any premises including the precincts thereof (excepting a mine and a railway running shed) constitute a factory if (1) 20 or more persons are working or were working thereon on any day of the preceding 12 months, and (2) in any part thereof a manufacturing process is being carried on with the aid of power. If these two conditions are satisfied, the entire premises including the precincts thereof constitute a factory, though the manufacturing process is carried on in only a part of the premises. The premises constituting a factory may be a building or open land or both. Inside the same compound wall, there may be two or more premises, the premises used in connection with manufacturing processes may constitute a factory, and the other premises within the same compound wall may be used for purposes unconnected with any manufacturing process and may form no part of the factory.
Section 2(g) of the Factories Act, 1948 defines ''power'' to mean electrical energy, or any other form of energy which is mechanically transmitted and is not generated by human or animal agency. Clause (k) of section 2 of the Factories Act defines ''manufacturing process'' meaning any process for--
(i) making, altering, repairing, ornamenting, finishing, packing, oiling, washing, cleaning, breaking up, demolishing, or otherwise treating or adapting any article or substance with a view to its use, sale, transport, delivery or disposal, or
(ii) pumping oil, water/or sewage, or
(iii) generating, transforming or transmitting power; or
(iv) composing types of printing, printing by letter press, lithography, photogravure or other similar process or book binding;
(v) constructing, reconstructing, repairing, refitting, finishing or breaking up ship or vessels.
In Ardeshir H. Bhiwandiwala v. State of Bombay (supra), their Lordships of the Supreme Court observed that "the word ''premises'' has now come to refer to either land or buildings, or both depending on the context. The expression ''premises including precincts'' does not necessarily mean that the premises must always have precincts. Even buildings need not have any precincts. The word ''including'' is not a term restricting the meaning of the word ''premises'' but is a term which enlarges the scope of the word ''premises''." Thus, the precincts merely explain premises--precincts being subordinate to the premises. The premises could, therefore, in themselves constitute the factory building alone or could include other buildings also in the entire complex of the factory. The main building and other subservient buildings could either exist within the same compound wall or on the other hand they could exist even outside it provided that they are subservient to the main factory building, [See The Birla Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills Ltd., Birla Mills Ltd. Vs. The Employees State Insurance Corporation, and Employees State Insurance Corporation, Madras Vs. S.M. Sriramulu Naidu, ].
The situation of the administrative office either being within the compound of the factory or even outside or at a distance of about 650 feet from the main building of the factory, as in the present case, is, therefore, not decisive in itself of the matter. The liability of the appellant-Mill to pay the employees'' contribution has come to be found because the concerned persons are employees of the Mill. It is only incidentally that the lower Court drew support from the document (Ex. D. 1) and the evidence of Jagdishlal Kapoor (a witness for the Corporation) that the administrative office is situated in the same compound in which the factory is situated, there being a way from the factory leading to the administrative office. The Learned Counsel for the appellant has been unable to point out to me any evidence that the liability on the Mill to pay the insurance contribution came to be solely dependent upon the situation of the new administrative office and it was non-existent earlier on that basis. The true criterion is, as already pointed out, not the situation of the office as such but whether the office in question is subservient to the main factory building and has no other purpose except to serve the needs of the factory. It is an admitted fact that when the administrative office in the old building was situated elsewhere the Mill had been paying no insurance contribution and the liability of the Mill to pay that contribution came to be agitated later on, at a time when the precincts of the administrative office had come to be shifted to the present site, but from this fact it does not necessarily follow that the liability to pay contribution had in any way depended upon the situation of the administrative office as such.
The crucial question for decision, therefore, is whether the appellant-Mill is liable to pay the insurance contribution because the concerned 26 persons are its employees. There is apparently all the force in the contention of the Learned Counsel for the appellant that the definition of "employee" u/s 2(9) of the Act after the amendment by the Act No. 44 of 1966 has come to have enlarged meaning. Without the amendment section 2(9) has stood as follows:
''Employee'' means any person employed for wages in or in connection with the work of a factory or establishment to which this Act applies and --
(i) who is directly employed by the principal employer on any work of, or incidental or preliminary to or connected with work of, the factory or establishment, whether such work is done by the employee in the factory or establishment or elsewhere; or
(ii) who is employed by or through an immediate employer on the premises of the factory or establishment or under supervision of the principal employer or his agent on work which is ordinarily part of the work of the factory or establishment or which is preliminary to the work carried on in or incidental to the purpose of the factory or establishment; or
(iii) whose services are temporarily lent or let on hire to the principal employer by the person with whom the person whose services are so lent or let on hire has entered into a contract of service;
* * * *
With its amendment after clause (iii) addition has been made which is as follows:
and includes any person employed for wages on any work connected with the administration of the factory or establishment or any part, department or branch thereof or with the purchase of raw materials for, or the distribution or sale of the products of the factory or establishment; but does not include--
When one looks to the statement of objects and reasons necessitating the change in the definition of the word "employee" one is left in no doubt that the amendment is not in nature of explaining something which had already existed or clarifying it but that it had enlarged the definition of the word "employee". The objects and reasons for introducing the change in the definition of the word "employee" were as follows:
Experience of the administration of the Act has disclosed certain difficulties in its working. The object of the present Bill is to remove such difficulties and to make the administration of the Act simpler. The major amendments proposed in the Bill are indicated below :
the existing definition of the term ''employee'' does not cover administrative staff engaged in sale, distribution and other allied functions. The definition is being amended to cover such employees.
[See Mettur Beardsell Ltd. v. E. S. I. Corporation 1974 LLJ 39, and its implied approval in Hyderabad Asbestos Cement Products Ltd. Vs. Employees Insurance Court and Another, , where their Lordships of the Supreme Court observed that the amended section includes any person employed for wages of any work connected with the administration of factory or any part or department or branch thereof].
Thus, it is clear that before the amendment the term "employee" had not covered administrative staff engaged in sale, distribution and other allied functions. The question, therefore, arises whether during the relevant period between 1-1-1966 and 30-9-1967 when the Act 44 of 1966 was not in force, the concerned 26 persons were included in the category of administative staff engaged in sale, distribution and other allied functions. As already noted, while narrating facts in para 2 (vide Ex. D. 4) neither of the concerned persons is engaged in the sale, distribution or any other allied functions (i.e. connected with either sale or distribution of the finished products). Their Lordships of the Supreme Court in The Nagpur Electric Light and Power Company Ltd. v. E. S. I. Corporation AIR 1967 SC 136, which was a case decided before the amendment to the definition of "employee" observing that the definition of ""employee" in the Act was wider than that of the "worker" in the Factories Act, considering the object of the Act to secure sickness, maternity, disablement and medical benefits to employees of factories and establishments and benefits to their dependents after explaining the definition of the "employee", came to lay down that the assistant engineers, supervisors, electricians, overseers engaged in the erection and maintenance of the electricity supply lines connected with transmission of power, the cable jointer, mistries, linemen, coolies (porters) (parenthesis mine), wire men employed for inspection of the supply lines, digging pits, erecting poles for laying distribution mains and service lines, the masons attending to the masonry work of the buildings, the attendants in-charge of the sub-stations, the motor drivers and cleaners for carrying materials and tower ladders in trucks for maintenance of the supply lines, the clerks, draughtsmen, main office peons, store keepers, deputy meter superintendent, meter mechanics and numerous others were employees of the Nagpur Electric Light and Power Company Ltd. Their Lordships further observed that "All these employees, clerical or otherwise, are employed in connection with the work of the factory, that is to say, in connection with the work of transforming and transmitting electrical power. Some of the employee are clerks, they are not engaged in manual labour. But a person doing non-manual work can be an employee within the meaning of section 2(9)(i) if he is employed in connection with work of the factory".
In K. Thiagarajan Chettiar Vs. Employees'' State Insurance Corporation, , the gardeners, building workers, office attender, watch-man and others of a textile mill were found to be employees. In Chanan Singh Proprietor Chanan Singh and Sons, Amritsar Vs. Regional Director, Employees'' State Insurance Corporation, Amritsar, , a person discharging the functions of an accountant was held to be an employee. Even workmen in the canteen attached to the factory in the case of Sirsilk Ltd., Sirpur, Kaghaznagar Vs. Regional Director, The Employees'' State Insurance Corporation, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, , were held to be employees because their work was connected with the work of the factory, they being responsible for feeding and entertaining workers actually engaged in the manufacturing process. The Act in question is a piece of welfare legislation and has to be construed liberally as has been the trend of the cases just noted. Bearing these principles in mind let us now examine the evidence.
The evidence of A.L. Gupta, Manager of the Corporation is that the document (Ex. P. 3) contains the list of employees from whom contribution has not been paid and these employees work inside the factory. The evidence of P.H. Chorde, the Manager of the Local Office of the Corporation at the material time arid Jagdishlal Kapoor is that the administrative staff works in the office over the gate of the factory. Even the evidence of Digamber Korane, the Manager of the Mill is that the administrative office was before situated inside the factory gate. His other notable evidence is that the nature of the work of administrative staff is the same as was before they shifted to the new office. So also is the evidence of Dattatraya Kavishwar. The evidence of Ramchandra Shrivastava, a witness for the Mill is that the administrative staff does the work, regarding calculation connected with the affairs of the factory. He also admits that there has been no change in the nature of work. Mangesh Mujumdar another witness for the Mill admitted in his cross-examination that there is one and the same accounts department for all the employees of the Hukumchand mill. The pay bills of the clerks are prepared in the accounts department and the summary of the pay bills of labourers also comes to the accounts office from the time-keeper''s office. There is no barrier between the administrative office and the other premises of the mill. From the evidence of Muzumdar, it is also clear that though the work of Hukamchand Mill is to manufacture cloth to sell it and buy cotton for it, the office is assigned the task of calculating and maintaining statistics of the work done. The administrative office also records whether the required standard of production and sale has been maintained. The establishment of factory and office is inter-connected, there being only one accounts department for the entire factory and office.
In the face of this evidence I concur with the findings of the Court below that all the concerned persons are employees and as such they were bound to be insured in the manner provided by the Act. The Mill, there-tore, u/s 39 of the Act was bound to pay contributions regarding its employees to the Corporation. The learned Judge of the Employees'' Insurance Court has rightly decreed the Corporation''s claim with interest at the rate of six per cent per annum and costs.
There is no force in this appeal and it is dismissed with costs to the Corporation. Counsel''s fee according to schedule, if certified.