NEW GRAND HIGH CLASS BAKERY Vs. EMPLOYEES STATE INSURANCE CORPORATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE short question which arises in the above letters Patent Appeal is whether slicing of breads or making loaves in a bakery does not form part of 'manufacturing process' and whether those who do so are governed by the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948. By his judgment dated June 27, 1973, Mr. Justice Apte confirmed the finding of the Employees' State Insurance Court in its judgment dated September 12, 1972, that the persons employed in cutting of the breads were included within the meaning of 'employees' as defined in Section 2 (9) of the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948; and the bakery as a whole was a factory as defined in Section 2 (12)of the said Act.

(2.) IN the present case, there is no dispute between the parties that more than 20 persons were employed on wages and they were working on electric oven on the appellants' premises. It is also not in dispute that breads, loaves and biscuits were prepared with the help of manual labour and they were baked in electric ovens in the bakery known as New Grand High Class Bakery belonging to the appellants, a partnership firm. It is also not in dispute that there is an electric oven in the premises of the bakery situate at Frere Road, Bombay. The only witness examined in the case was Faridum Irani, partner in the appellants' firm, who admitted all these facts and said that breads and biscuits were made by the workmen, and the bakery was registered as a factory under the Factories Act. He also admitted that the appellants sell manufactured goods in the factory in the same form in bulk, but if some customers ask them to sell sliced breads, they cut the breads in a small machine kept near the sales counter. When in 1959 the Employees' State Insurance Corporation informed the appellants that the factory was governed by the provisions of the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, the appellants informed the Corporation that they were not using power and the factory was not covered by the provisions of the said Act. Again in 1969 the Corporation contended that the factory was covered by the act. The same reply was given. The Corporation, however, did not agree. Hence the appellants filed Application No. 9 of 1969 under section 75 (1) (g) of the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, seeking declaration that it was not covered under the provisions of the said Act.

(3.) THE Insurance Court and our learned brother Apte, J. , concurrently found that it is covered by the Act because cutting the bread into slices was a 'manufacturing process', as defined in Section 2 (k)of the Factories Act, which runs as follows: