H R ADYANTHAYA OTHERS Vs. SANDOZ INDIA LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question that falls for consideration in these matters is whether the 'medical representatives' as they are commonly known, are workmen according to the definition of "workman" under Section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (the ID 'Act'). The definition under this section has undergone changes since its first enactment. It is necessary to keep in mind the said changes since the decisions of this Court delivered on the point from time to time are based on the definition, as it stood at the relevant time. The definition, as it stood originally when the ID Act came into force w.e.f. 1-4-1947, read as follows :

(2.) A three-Judge Bench of this Court in May and Baker (India) Ltd. v. Their Workmen, (1961) 2 Lab LJ 94 : (AIR 1967 SC 678) had to deal directly with the question as to whether the medical representative of the company, who was discharged from service, was a workman under the ID Act and the order of the reinstatement passed by the Industrial Tribunal was, therefore, valid. The Court referred to the undisputed nature of the duties of the employee, and found that his main work was that of canvassing sales. Any clerical or manual work that he had to do was incidental to the said main work, and could not take more than a small fraction of the time for which he had to work. In the circumstances, the Court held that the Tribunal's conclusion that the employee was a workman under the ID Act was incorrect. The Court also observed that the Tribunal in that case seemed to have been led away by the fact that the employee had no supervisory duties and had to work under the direction of his superior officers. The Court held that that would not necessarily mean that the employee's duties were mainly manual or clerical. The Court held that from what the Tribunal itself had found, it was clear that the employee's duties were mainly neither clerical nor manual and, therefore, he was not a workman. Hence the Court set aside the Tribunal's direction for reinstating the employee.

(3.) The legal position that arises from the statutory provisions and from the aforesaid survey of the decisions may now be summarised as follows :