NAGPUR ELECTRIC LIGHT AND POWER CO LIMITED EMPLOYEES OF NAGPUR ELECTRIC LIGHT AND POWER CO LIMITED Vs. REGIONAL DIRECTOR EMPLOYEES STATE INSURANCE CORPORATION CORPORATION:NAGPUR ELECTRIC LIGHT AND POWER CO LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question in issue in these appeals is whether certain employees of the Nagpur Electric Light and Power Co., Ltd., are employees within the meaning of S. 7(9) of the Employees State Insurance Act. 1948 (34 of 1948). The company and the employees filed two separate applications before the Employees insurance Court under S. 70 of the Act for the determination of the question. Their case is that out of the five categories of staff mentioned in appendices 1 to 5 to the company's petition, those connected with the receiving station and workshop (appendices 1 and 2) were employees within the meaning of S. 2(9), but those connected with the engineering, stores and outdoor work, meter, consumers and allocation departments and administration Appendices 3, 4 and 5) were not such employees. The Regional Director. Employees' State insurance Corporations contested the applications, but he admitted that the workers of the categories mentioned in items .5 to 14 of appendix 4 and items 1, 7 and 8 of appendix 5 of appendix 5 were not employees within the meaning of S. 2 (9). The Employees; Insurance Court found that those workers and also the workers mentioned in item 12 of appendix .5 were not such employees. The correctness of this finding is not in issue in these appeals and we express no opinion on it. The categories of workers mentioned in Appendix III, items 1 -4 in Appendix IV and items 2-6 and 9-11 of Appendix V are as follows:

(2.) The Employees' Insurance Court held that the aforesaid workers were employess within the meaning of S. 2 (9) of the Act. The company and the employees filed two separate appeals from this decision to the High Court of Bombay (Nagpur Bench) under S. 82 of the Act. Abhyankar, J., affirmed the finding of the Employees' Insurance Court and dismissed the appeals. Letters Patent appeals from his orders were summarily dismissed by a Bench of the High Court. The company and employees have now preferred two separate appeals to this Court by special leave.

(3.) The Nagpur Electric Light and Power Co. Ltd., occupies certain premises at Kamptee Road, Nagpur where it carries on the work of transforming and transmitting electrical energy. The premises are located within a compound wall. Inside the premises there are several buildings, yards and open spaces. The receiving station, the workshop, the meter testing department, the engineers' quarters, the general office, and stores are in different buildings inside the premises. The company does not generate electricity. It maintains a receiving station inside the premises where it receives electrical energy in bulk from the generating station of the Maharashtra Electricity Board at Khapparkheda. The energy when received is of 11000 volts. From the receiving station, the energy is either carried through electric supply lines to a transformer and is stepped down to 3300 volts and is then carried to the sub-stations in the city where it is again stepped down to 400 volts by other transformers, or is carried from the stepped down directly from 11000 to 400 volts. From the sub-stations, the energy is transmitted by electric supply lines and distributed to consumers. The first question is whether the company maintains a factory and if so, where its factory is located.