JANAB S AHMED HUSSAIN AND SONS THREE LOTUS BEEDI FACTORY Vs. SECRETARY UNITED BEEDI WORKERS UNION SALEM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners in each of these two cases are the proprietors of an industrial concern in Salem District engaged in the manufacture and sale of beedis. The manual labour of rolling beedis was done by persons to whom it should be convenient to refer as the beedi rollers. Between the proprietors and the beedi rollers intervened a set of persons; known to the industry as "contractors", but whom I' shall refer to for the purposes of this judgment ad intermediaries, a less controversial nomenclature.

(2.) THEUSAND beedis rolled constituted the unit of work on the basis of which a beedi roller was paid for his work. Who paid that amount and who was legally bound to pay are questions to which I shall advert later. Till October 1956 the beedi roller was paid Rs. 1-6-0 for every unit of large becdis and Rs. 1-8-0 for every unit of beedis of small size rolled by him. The rates were increased to Rs. 1-14-0 and Rs. 2-0-0 respectively in October 1956. In July-August 1957, the Government increased the excise duty on tobacco by 2 annas per pound. That was in due course reflected not in the price ultimately charged to the consumer, but in remuneration paid to the beedi rollers which was cut down by 2 annas per unit. The claims of the beedi rollers sponsored by their Union, that that cut should not have been imposed, were referred as industrial disputes for adjudication by the industrial Tribunal, Madras, under Section 10 (1) (c) of the Industrial Disputes Act. The proprietors, the intermediaries and the Union, representing the beedi rollers were impleaded as parties to these disputes.

(3.) THE main basis for the contention of the proprietors and that of the intermediaries, that what had been referred for adjudication were not industrial disputes as defined by the Act was the plea, that the beedi rollers were not "workmen" within the meaning of Section 2 (s) of the Act. That raised a jurisdictional issue, on the correct determination of which depended the further jurisdiction of the Tribunal to adjudicate upon the disputes referred to it as industrial disputes. The contention of the proprietors and the inter-, mediaries was that there was no jural relationship of master and servant (1) between the proprietor and the beedi rollers, (2) between the proprietor and the intermediaries, or (3) between each of the intermediaries and the beedi rollers who worked for him. Thus the contention was that the beedi rollers were not "employed" under any one within the meaning of Section 2 (s) of the Act.