S.S.Sandhawalia, J. - (1.) WHETHER a person employed casually in a factory or an establishment is within the ambit of the definition of an 'employee' as laid in Section 2 of Sub -section (9) of the Employees' State Insurance Act? - -is the somewhat meaningful question which has necessitated its consideration by the Full Bench.
(2.) LEARNED Counsel for the parties are agreed that in essence the answer to the aforesaid question would govern all these four appeals which will be disposed of by this single judgment. To provide the necessary matrix of facts for the legal issue, it suffices to advert briefly to those in Employees' State Insurance Corporation Chandigarh v. Oswal Woollen Mills Ltd. Ludhiana F.A.O. No. 451 of 1978. The Respondent -Mill had moved an application before the Employees State Insurance Court challenging a notice by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (hereinafter called 'the Corporation' requiring them to deposit certain sums of money as contribution both of the employer and the employee. The material item pertains to persons who, according to the Respondent -Mill were casual labourers employed only for the construction and maintenance of the premises of its factory. Payments to these casual employees had been made under the head "Building repairs and factory construction". The stand of the Respondent -Mill was that the amounts so paid to casual labourers were not wages paid to employees and therefore, they were not liable to pay any contribution with regard thereto. The firm stand of the Appellant -Corporation, on the other hand, was that these casual labourers were also employees within the meaning of the Act. and therefore, the Respondent -Mill was liable, both for the employees' share and the employers' share therefor. The Court below, after noticing some conflict of authority chose to follow the Division Bench judgment in Employee? State Insurance Corporation Chandigarh v. Onkar Nath Gupta, 1975 P.L.R. 79 and held that these casual workers' were not covered by the statutory provisions. The Corporation has come up by way of appeal and at the motion stage the case was admitted to a hearing by the Full Bench in view of an apparent conflict of authority within this Court itself.
(3.) AS would be evident from the formulation of the legal question, at the very out -set, one must inevitably first turn to tie relevant provision of the statute and for facility of reference, Section 2(9) of the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948 (hereinafter called 'the Act'), maybe read: '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 the 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 the 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; (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). Now a bare look at the aforesaid provisions would make manifest the anxiety of the Legislature to couch the definition in such wide ranging terms so as to bring within its ambit all persons employed in the factory or establishment, both with regard to the nature of the work as also the mode or manner in which the employment has been brought about. What first deserves to be highlighted is that any 'employee' is not confined merely to a person engaged for the work of the factory or establishment alone, Clause (i) designedly extends this to work which may be merely incidental or preliminary and even merely connected therewith. The wide amplitude of the language is significant. This would at once negative and set at rest any argument that the employment must necessarily be related directly to the actual work of the factory or establishment as such.;