O.H.Mootham, C.J. - (1.) This is an appeal from an order of Mr. Justice Mehrotra dated 23-4-1956.
(2.) The respondent is a Company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act which carries on business in Allahabad. The Employees Provident Funds Act (hereinafter called 'the Act') came into force on 4-3-1.952, and later in that year the Central Government framed a Provident Fund Scheme under Section 5 thereof. Thereafter the appellant, who is the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Uttar Pradesh, called upon the respondent Company to make payment of the contributions and administrative charges tor which provision is made in the Act, with effect from November of that year. The respondent Company contended that the provisions of the Act did not apply to its factory and filed a writ petition in this Court, No. 478 of 1953. Thereafter negotiations took place between the appellant and the respondent Company as a result of which the writ petition was not pressed and was dismissed in December, 1954. The tentative arrangement arrived at between the parties however fell through, and it appears that the appellant renewed his original demand. The respondent Company thereupon filed a second petition in which it contended that the Act had no application to its factory and sought an order from this Court restraining the appellant from taking any steps against it under the provisions of the Act. The learned Judge was of opinion that the respondent Company's contentions were well founded, and he accordingly allowed the petition and granted the relief sought. From that order the appellant now appeals.
(3.) Now Sub-section (3) of Section 1 of the Act, as amended by the Employees Provident Funds (Amendment) Act, 1953 enacts that, subject to the provisions contained in Section 16, the Act shall apply "in the first instance to all factories engaged in any industry specified in Schedule I and in which fifty or more persons are employed, but the Central Government may, after giving not less than two months' notice of its intention so to do, buy notification in the Official Gazette, apply the provisions of this Act to all factories employing such number of persons less than fifty as may be specified in the notification and engaged in any such industry." The term 'industry' is defined in Section 2, Clause (i) as meaning inter alia, any industry specified in Schedule I to the Act; and Section 16 provides that the Act shall not apply to what is described as an infant factory, that is to say to a factory "established whether before or after the commencement of this Act, unless three years have elapsed from its establishment." It is not in dispute that the respondent Company's premises constitute a factory within the meaning of the Act. The learned Judge was of opinion that the Act had no application to that factory for three reasons: firstly, that the factory was not engaged in any industry specified in Schedule I to the Act; secondly, that if it were engaged in such industry less than fifty persons were employed in such industry; and, thirdly, that the factory was an infant establishment within the meaning of Section 16. The correctness of each of these findings is assailed by the appellant.;