TATA SONS LTD Vs. S BANDYOPADHYAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioner is aggrieved by an Award dated 18th February 1998 passed by the learned Labour Court in ID No.85/92. The sole question agitated by learned counsel for the Petitioner is with respect to the finding of the learned Labour Court that the Respondent, an employee of Tata Risk Management Services, working as a Deputy Manager (Engineering) on a salary of Rs.2700 per month, dearness allowance of Rs.1500 per month and a flat is a workman within the meaning of Section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short the Act).

(2.) The case law on the subject of how to determine whether an employee is a workman or not has been discussed by me in considerable detail in K.H. Pandhi vs. Presiding Officer, CW No.1224 of 1978 decided on 5th February 2004. It is not necessary for me, therefore, to repeat the case law or the discussion therein.

(3.) Suffice it to say that the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in H.R. Adyanthaya vs. Sandoz (India) Ltd., (1994) 5 SCC 737 held that for an employee to be covered by the definition of "workman", he must be employed in any industry to do any manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work. If he falls within these categories, it has then to be seen whether he comes within any of the four excluded categories mentioned in Section 2(s) of the Act. The Constitution Bench noticed certain earlier decisions where the initial determination was whether an employee falls within any of the excluded categories. If he did not fall within any excluded category, then it was held that he was a workman within the meaning of Section 2(s) of the Act. The Constitution Bench found this approach to be incorrect.