Pathak, J. - (1.) This and the connected cases raise the important question whether the workers employed at their homes in the manufacture of beedis are entitled to the benefit of the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 and the Schemes framed thereunder.
(2.) The question for consideration is surrounded by a welter of facts, many of which are disputed through affidavits filed on the record, and it has not been an easy task to pick our way through them to arrive at an intelligent and coherent picture for the purpose of deciding these cases. We propose to take Writ Petitions Nos. 3605 to 3609 of 1978 filed by Messrs. P. M. Patel and Sons and others as the leading group of cases, because the principal arguments on the several points arising in these cases were argued by learned counsel in those writ petitions.
(3.) The petitioners are engaged in the manufacture and sale of beedis. The labour employed in the manufacture of beedis consists of different categories. At the factory, which constitutes the formal establishment, there is an administrative and clerical staff, accountants, packers, checkers and bhattimen. The work of rolling the beedis itself is done by one or the other of different categories of workers. The work may be entrusted by the manufacturers directly to workers who prepare the beedis at home after obtaining a supply of the raw material consisting of tobacco, beedi leaves and thread from the manufacturers. Another category consists of workers employed by the manufacturers through contractors, and the manufacturers pass on the raw material to such workers for rolling the beedis in their dwelling houses. and there is, in a sense, a direct relationship between he manufacturers and those workers. The third category of home workers are those to whom the work is entrusted by independent contractors who treat the workers as their own employees and get the work done by them either at their own premises or in the dwelling homes of the workers in order to fulfil and complete. with him, for Petitioners; Mr. Abdul Khader, Sr. Advocate. Mr. Girish Chander and Miss. A. Subhashini Advocates with him, for Respondents, Mr. Rameshwar Nath, Advocate, for Interveners contracts entered into with the manufacturers for the supply of the finished product from the raw material supplied by the manufacturers to the contractors. According to the manufacturers the home workers attend at the factories within specified hours every day and collect the raw material for taking to, their homes for rolling beedis. While that is true of home workers employed directly by the manufacturers or who have been placed in employment through contractors with the manufacturer in the case of home workers employed by independent contractors that may not be so. In the case of home workers who hold a direct relationship with the manufacturers the rolled beedis are brought by the home workers to the factory and the beedis which conform to the standards envisaged by the manufacturers are accepted while those which do not are rejected. The acceptance or rejection is effected in the presence of the home worker to whom the work was entrusted. The staff at the factory maintains registers in which regular entries are made of the raw material supplied to home workers, and of the rolled beedis which are delivered by them at the factory. The payment of wages to such home workers may be made directly or distributed through the contractors engaged by the manufacturers for engaging them. In the case of contracts between the manufacturers and independent contractors, the manufactured product is collected by the contractors from their home workers and delivered to the manufacturer. It is evident that the manufacturer is concerned only with payment under the contract to the contractors, and the payment of wages to the home workers is a matter between the contractors and the home workers.;