JUDGMENT

Rajendra Babu. J.-Civil Appeal No. 670 of 1997:

The appellant is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 with the object of manufacture and sale of cigarettes. Members of general public are the shareholders and the shares of the company are traded in through various stock exchanges in the country. A petition was filed under Article 226 of the Constitution by respondent No.1 seeking for a writ of mandamus to treat the members of the respondent - union who are employees working in the canteen of the appellant s factory as employees of the appellant and for grant of monetary and other consequential benefits. The canteen is provided in the factory premises of the appellant pursuant to Section 46 of the Factories Act, 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the Act ), which obliges a factory employing more than 250 workmen to provide such a canteen. On behalf of the respondents, it is contended that the appellant had been managing the canteen up to the year 1982 and thereafter introduced the contract system for maintaining the canteen so established; that though the management of the canteen had been entrusted to the contractors from time to time, the personnel employed in