NILGIRIS CO OPERATIVE MARKETING SOCIETY LIMITED NO K 708 OOTACAMUND Vs. CHIEF INSPECTOR OF FACTORIES MADRAS 5

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner seeks to set aside order of first respondent, dated 13th March, 1979, informing petitioner that it may got registered as a factory by applying for registration and grant of licence under Factories Act, 1948 and the order of second respondent, dated 11th January, 1979, informing that on an inspection made on 23rd December, 1978, it was found that certain provisions of Factories Act and Rules framed thereunder were not being followed.

(2.) Petitioner is a Co -operative Marketing Society, which has been in existence during the past 4 decades helping potato growers to grow potato by supplying fertilizers, seed potatoes and extending such advance to a! those -who are members of the Society. As and when potato crop is harvested, they are delivered by the grower members at the godown of the petitioner, at Mettupalayam, where the -potatoes are unloaded spread over and spoilt potatoes are removed they are cleaned and sorted not according to size heaped in units of 45 kilograms, weighed and sold in auction held for the benefit of members to their account then packed in bags whenever purchasers bring their own bags, by workers who are engaged by independent contractors and loaded into lorries or other vehicles and for all these activities, separate contractors engage their workmen and collect handling charges from the Society which in turn collects the said charges from the grower -members. It only maintains a skeleton staff for the work of supervision, but the entire processes as above listed are carried out by piece -rate contractors, who pay the workmen according to the rates which they may choose to pay, and" hence, the premises of petitioner cannot be treated as a factory nor the workmen who are involved in these processes are workers under section 2 (1) of the Factories Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act): nor the process involved is a manufacturing process under section 2 (k) of the Act. It is contended that there are 70 or 80 mundis at Mettupalayam, which follow this sort of procedure in respect of sale of potatoes and they are all private -mundies, and not covered by Factories Act, and still, only in respect of petitioner -Society the impugned proceedings were issued and it being discriminatory, the impugned communications requires to be set aside. Respondents plead that petitioner -society is a factory under section 2 (m) and it carries on a manufacturing process under section 2 (k) of Act,. when it is admitted that it is engaged in packing potatoes in say event, apart from the other processes above listed and merely because contractors are employed and paid on piece -rate basis, the workers engaged by such contractors cannot but be treated as workers under section 2 (1) and in that sense, they would be treated as workers of the petitioner society. Petitioner -society is also having a fertiliser mixing unit and employs 10 regular . staff and 15 to 20 contract workers. No attendant benefit under Factories Act having been provided for workers, merely because it is a cooperative society, it cannot avoid implementation of the beneficial provisions of the Act. It applied for being exempted from the provisions of the Act to the Government, but it was rejected.

(3.) Since the petitioner filed a reply -affidavit listing out of the activities carried out in its precincts in respect of potatoes belonging to member -growers it was considered that, when no other agency is created under the provisions of the Act to ascertain the factual particulars, it would be in the interests of the parties to direct the concerned officials to inspect the petitioner premises and ascertain the nature of activities going on, and find out from and out of the account books maintained by it, whether it can be made out that the concerned workers could be treated as the workers of the petitioner -society and to what extent there is a manufacturing process being carried out within the meaning of section 2 (k) of the Act.