TATA ENGG AND LOCOMOTIVE CO LTD Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these writ petitions have been heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) What is the meaning of a " metallurgical industry"? This is the principal question which has come up for consideration in this batch of the writ petitions. The Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company Limited, Jamshedpur is the petitioner. The petitioner is a Company incorporated under a fresh certificate of Incorporation dt. 24-9-1960, consequent to change of name of the Tata Locomotive and Engineering Company Limited, under a resolution passed in terms of S.2, Companies Act, 1956 with the approval of the Central Government. It is claimed that the petitioner in accordance with its Memorandum of Association has been pursuing its object of carrying on the business of manufacturing, assembling, selling, altering, importing, exporting, distributing and dealing in locomotives, boilers, engines, steamgas, electrical or otherwise, turbine, tankers, motor vehicles, trucks, lorries, omnibuses, buses, bulldozers, steam rollers, excavators and the kind. The head office of the company is located at Bombay and the factory is located at Jamshedpur within the State of Bihar and at Poona in the State of Maharashtra.

(3.) It has been stated that the petitioner undertook the manufacture of open goods wagons in 1946, which was discontinued in 1948. Then they undertook manufacture of Tata Marshall Steam Road Rollers in collaboration with Messrs Marshall of the United Kingdom. This was also discontinued in 1956. In 1949 the petitioner had also undertaken manufacture of underframes for passenger carriages, which too was discontinued in the year 1956. Thereupon the petitioner-Company under a collaboration agreement entered into in 1954 with Dalmer Benz undertook the manufacture of commercial vehicles. The first vehicle rolled out of its Jamshedpur Workshop on the 15th Oct., 1954. In 1960 the Company started manufacturing truck engines also at its Jamshedpur Workshop and in 1961 in collaboration with Messrs Fawling and Harnigohfigger (United States) excavators etc. Since 1969 the Tata Mercedes Benz Diesel vehicles are being rolled out of its workshops. From 1980 Turbo Engine 1516 L.P.T. with bus chassis was converted to truck: and from 1983 in collaborations with Hitachi, Japan, the petitioner-Company has been manufacturing Hydraulic excavators. It is thus claimed that the petitioner-company is engaged in the manufacture of automobiles, hydraulic excavators, long crawlers, shovels, dragline, claimshell and back hoe and is known and called as an Engineering Industry.