The State Of Uttar Pradesh vs M. P. Singh And Others

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeals Nos. 157 and 158 of 1957 and 5 of 1958

Decision Date: 15 December, 1959

Coram: J.C. Shah, Bhuvneshwar P. Sinha, P.B. Gajendragadkar, K.C. Das Gupta

In this matter, the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment on 15 December 1959 in the case titled The State of Uttar Pradesh versus M P Singh and Others. The bench comprised Justice J C Shah, Justice Bhuvneshwar P Sinha, Justice P B Gajendragadkar and Justice K C Das Gupta. The petitioner was the State of Uttar Pradesh and the respondents were M P Singh together with several other individuals. The citation for this judgment is recorded as 1960 AIR 569 and 1960 SCR (2) 605, with subsequent citator references including F 1966 SC1995 (5) R, 1967 SC1364 (9) R and 1978 SC 849 (5,7). The statutory framework relevant to the dispute involved the United Provinces Shop and Commercial Establishment Act, 1947 (U P Act No XXII of 1947), specifically section 2(3) which defines a “commercial establishment,” and the Factories Act, 1948 (Act LXIII of 1948), particularly section 2(1) which defines a “factory worker.” The factual backdrop was that the three respondents—who held the positions of General Manager, Assistant Manager and Secretary of Laxmi Devi Sugar Mills Ltd.—were charged under sections 12, 13 and 26 of the United Provinces Shop and Commercial Establishment Act, 1947. The charges alleged that they had contravened provisions of the Act concerning holidays, leave and the maintenance of certain registers for a class of field workers employed by the sugar mill to guide, supervise and control the growth and supply of sugarcane intended for use in the factory. The respondents contended that those field workers were “workers” within the meaning of the Factories Act; consequently, they argued that the United Provinces Shop and Commercial Establishment Act should not apply to them. The Judicial Magistrate rejected this contention, convicted the respondents under section 26 of the Act and imposed a fine of Rs 30 on each. The Sessions Judge subsequently referred the matter, suggesting that the convictions and sentences might be set aside. On review, the Allahabad High Court acquitted the respondents. The State Government then appealed to this Court by way of Special Leave. The Court held that the High Court’s order of acquittal was erroneous. It reasoned that the Factories Act was intended to benefit only workers who were employed within a factory; because the field workers who guided, supervised and controlled the sugarcane growth and supply were not employed in the factory itself, they did not fall within the definition of “factory worker” under the Factories Act. Accordingly, those field workers were covered by the definition of “commercial establishment” in the United Provinces Shop and Commercial Establishment Act, 1947. The judgment therefore affirmed that the respondents could be held liable under the commercial establishment legislation. The appeal was filed as Criminal Appeals Nos 157 and 158 of 1957 and No 5 of 1958, seeking special leave from the Allahabad High Court’s order dated 31 October 1955 in Criminal Reference Nos 28, 29 and 30 of 1955, which arose from the Sessions Judge’s judgment and order dated 18 December 1954 in Criminal Revisions Nos 7, 8 and 9 of 1954. Counsel for the appellant were counsel for the State, while counsel for the respondents represented the accused.

The judgment of the Court was delivered by Shah J. The matter before the Court concerned whether field workers—specifically Supervisors and Kamdars employed by a sugar factory to guide, supervise and control the growth and supply of sugarcane for use in that factory—qualified as employees of a “Commercial Establishment” within the meaning of the United Provinces Shop and Commercial Establishment Act, 1947 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The Magistrate who tried the respondents for offences under section 27 of the Act had held that those field workers were indeed employees of a Commercial Establishment. By contrast, the High Court at Allahabad adopted an opposite view, and the State of Uttar Pradesh appealed to this Court against the High Court order, obtaining special leave under article 136 of the Constitution. The United Provinces Shop and Commercial Establishment Act, 1947 was enacted to regulate hours of work and certain other conditions of employment in shops and commercial establishments. Section 2, clause 3 of the Act defined “Commercial Establishment”. Section 12 required the employer to grant a weekly holiday in addition to holidays that might be provided under section 11. Section 13 dealt with the grant of ordinary, casual and sickness leave. Section 26 mandated that the employer keep registers, records and display prescribed notices, and section 27 penalised contraventions of the Act and its rules. Lakshmi Devi Sugar Mills Ltd., hereinafter called the company, owned a factory at Chhitauni for manufacturing sugar. The three respondents were respectively the General Manager, the Assistant Manager and the Secretary of the company. The company employed various classes of field workers to guide, supervise and control the growth and supply of sugarcane for the factory. The Deputy Chief Inspector of Shops and Commercial Establishment, Uttar Pradesh, filed three complaints against the respondents in the Court of the Judicial Magistrate, Deoria, charging them with violation of sections 12, 13 and 26 of the Act in relation to certain field workers employed for the stated purposes. The respondents argued that the Act did not apply to those employees because they were workers within the meaning of the Factories Act and therefore exempt. The Judicial Magistrate rejected this contention, convicted the respondents of contravention of section 26, and sentenced each of them to a fine of Rs 30 in each of the three cases. The respondents then filed revision applications before the Court of Session at Deoria. The Sessions Judge disagreed with the trial magistrate’s view, referred the matters to the High Court at Allahabad and recommended that the conviction and sentence orders be set aside.

The High Court took notice of the references sent to it and ordered that the respondents be released from the charges. According to the definition of “Commercial Establishment” found in section 2 clause 3 of the Act, the term includes the clerical and other establishments of a factory to which the provisions of the Factories Act, 1934, do not apply. Although the reference in that definition points specifically to the Factories Act of 1934, the General Clauses Act of 1897, in section 8, requires that such a reference be interpreted as referring to the provisions of the Factories Act of 1948, which repealed and re-enacted the 1934 statute. Consequently, the State’s argument, raised by special leave, that the repeal of the 1934 Act caused the definition of “Commercial Establishment” in section 2 clause 3 to automatically include all clerical and other factory establishments without any exemption, does not withstand scrutiny. The Factories Act of 1948 defines a “worker” in section 2(1) as any person employed, directly or through any agency, whether for wages or not, in any manufacturing process or in cleaning any part of the machinery or premises used for a manufacturing process, or in any other kind of work incidental to or connected with the manufacturing process or its subject. Section 2(m) defines a “factory” as any premises, including the precincts thereof, where a specified number of workers have been employed on any day of the preceding twelve months. By combining these definitions, it follows that persons engaged in any manufacturing process, in cleaning machinery or premises used for that process, or in any other work incidental to or connected with the manufacturing process, are deemed workers in a factory. The use of the phrase “any other kind of work incidental to or connected with the subject of the manufacturing process” in section 2(1) therefore brings within its scope not only those workers directly involved in manufacturing but also those whose duties are linked to the subject of the manufacturing process in a factory. For the purpose of this case, it is unnecessary to decide the precise meaning of the expression “subject of the manufacturing process” in section 2 clause (1), because the various provisions of the Factories Act are intended to benefit only workers who are employed in a factory, that is, within the precincts or premises of a factory. It is therefore difficult to conclude that field workers who guide, supervise and control the growth and supply of sugarcane for use in a factory are employed either within the precincts or the premises of that factory; if these workers are not employed in a factory, the Factories Act does not apply to them and they fall within the definition of “Commercial Establishment”.

In the circumstances, because the individuals in question were not employed within a factory, the provisions of the Factories Act, 1948 could not be said to apply to them, and consequently they fell clearly within the meaning of a “Commercial Establishment” as defined by the statute. The High Court had held that the Supervisors and Kamdars who were connected with the manufacturing process of sugarcane qualified as workers under the Factories Act and, on that basis, were excluded from the definition of a “Commercial Establishment.” Nevertheless, even assuming that the Supervisors and Kamdars performed some other kind of work related to the manufacturing process, the decisive factor remained their place of employment; unless they were employed inside the factory premises, the Factories Act would not govern them. There was no genuine dispute that, based on this reasoning, they were employees of a “Commercial Establishment” within the meaning of the relevant legislation. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the High Court had erred in setting aside the convictions of the respondents that had been recorded by the Trial Magistrate. The appellate Court therefore set aside the High Court’s orders of acquittal and restored the Trial Magistrate’s findings of guilt and the sentences that had been imposed. Pursuant to the order of this Court dated 1 October 1956, which was issued when special leave was granted, the respondents were awarded costs of the hearing before this Court. The appeal was allowed.