SHANKAR MADHAVRAO SOLAV Vs. M K SARODE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is directed against the order of the State Industrial Court, Nagpur, which upheld the order of the Assistant Labour Commissioner, Madhya Pradesh, directing reinstatement of the respondent No. 1 and payment of Rs. 1000/- as compensation to him for failure to reinstate.

(2.) THE only point which we need consider in this case is whether the Assistant Labour Commissioner had jurisdiction to make the aforesaid order. It may be mentioned that when that order came to be passed S. 16 of the C. P. and Berar Industrial Disputes Settlement Act, prior to its amendment by Act XXI of 1955, was in force. Under the old provision the Labour Commissioner had jurisdiction to act under S. 16 only with respect to an industrial dispute which arose in a factory and not merely in an industry. That being the position, what has to be considered here is whether the activity carried on by the petitioner can be regarded as a factory. The activity of the petitioner consists of exhibiting] cinema films. It is difficult to see how this activity can be regarded as a factory. Shri Paranjpe, who' appears for the respondent No. 1, refers to a decision of a single Judge of the Madras High Court reported in In re, A. M. Chinniah, 1957-1 Lab. LJ 380 : (AIR 1957 Mad 755) to the effect that laundry business comes within the definition of 'factory' in Sec. 2 (m) of the Factories Act, 1948.

(3.) IN the first place, we cannot read the definition of factory contained in the Factories Act for the purpose of ascertaining what that expression as used in S. 16 and other provisions of the Industrial Disputes Settlement Act, 1947, means. In Wharton's Law Lexicon the word factory has been defined thus: