Rupali Prashar, Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi
ABSTRACT
The Supreme Court in the recent case has held the Irrigation Department of the state government to be not covered by Chapter V-B of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, meaning thereby, that the respondent employee was deprived of the benefit of higher retrenchment compensation that would have been payable to him had it been held otherwise. The concerned department satisfied the conditions mentioned in Section 25K for the application of Chapter V-B of Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 but the court found the definition of ‘Industrial Establishment’ under Section 25L(a)(i) to be unsatisfied. This issue presents a larger question that whether the state government departments could be brought under the definition of ‘factory’ by reading into them the carrying out of ‘manufacturing process’ under the provisions of Factories Act, 1948. This would have bearing on the termination of services of innumerable workmen in future that are employed in various state departments. This category of workmen mostly belong to Group C and D service, engaged in unskilled work, that need higher protection under the law on being retrenched from the service. There has been judicial uncertainty on this point of law and the courts until now have decided on case-to-case basis rather than a specific pattern. In this case, the Apex Court has followed the ‘predominant activity’ test which brings it into conflict with some of cases that decided on similar issue previously. By tracing the legislative history and related case law, the commentary seeks to critically analyze the judgement that relates to jurisprudentially less developed but an important area of labour law.
Keywords: Irrigation Department, Industrial Establishment, Manufacturing Process, Factory, Retrenchment, Industrial Dispute Act, 1947
