- (1.) To overcome such situation because of the Apex Court judgment in the case of May and Baker (India) Ltd. v. Workmen AIR 1967 SC 678 : 1961-II-LLJ-94 whereby the employees engaged in sales promotion were held to be not falling within the purview of the definition of 'workman' under the Industrial Disputes Act and when such class of employees sought protection of security of their employment and particularly in the case of medical representatives in the firm Medicine Industry, the Parliament had enacted the Sales Promotion Employees (Conditions of Service) Act, 1976 (hereinafter referred to as SPE Act).
(2.) The statement of objects and reasons for regulating certain conditions of service of such sales promotion employees as published in the Gazette of India (Extraordinary) dated May 14, 1975 Part II page 400 as under: "An Act to regulate certain conditions of service of sales promotion employees in certain establishments - Prefatory Note: Statement of Objects and Reasons as a result of the Supreme Court judgment in the case of May and Baker (India) Limited v. Workmen (supra), the persons engaged in sales promotion do not come within the purview of the definition of "workman" under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and as such they have no protection regarding security of employment and other benefits under that Act. These persons, particularly the medical representatives in the Pharmaceutical Industry have been demanding from time to time that they should be covered by Industrial Disputes Act. On a petition made by the Federation of Medical Representatives Association of India, the Committee on Petitions (Rajya Sabha) in its thirteenth report submitted on March, 14, 1972, came to the conclusion that "the ends of social justice to this class of people will not be met only by suitably amending the definition of the term 'workman' in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 in a manner that the medical representatives are also covered by the definition of 'workman' in the said Act. The Committee also felt that other workers engaged in sales promotions should similarly be considered as workmen. (2) Keeping in view the justification of the demand of the sales promotion employees, and the recommendation made by the Committee on Petitions, and taking other relevant aspects into consideration, it is considered more appropriate to have a separate legislation for governing the conditions of service of sales promotion employees, instead of amending the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 to bring such employees within its purview."
(3.) Under Section 2 (d) "sales promotion employees" means any person by whatever name called (including an apprentice) employed or engaged in any establishment for hire or reward to do any work relating to promotion of sales or business, or both, with the exception that the employees engaged in supervisory capacity, draws wages exceeding certain amount or engaged mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity.;