Judgment

DAS GUPTA, J. : When an entrepreneur - whether an individual proprietor or a partnership firm, or an incorporated Company - is engaged in several activities each of which comes within the definition of "industry" in the Industrial Disputes Act, the question often arises whether these several activities together form one industrial unit or are distinct separate industrial units. It seldom happens that the several ventures can show in every year equally successful results and so when a dispute arises between such an owner and the workmen engaged in one of the ventures over bonus, not only the quantum of the bonus which may be reasonably payable to workmen, but the very question whether any sum will be payable at all or not, may well depend, on whether the overall results, or the results of the particular venture where the workmen with whom the dispute has arisen are employed are taken into consideration. A proper decision of such a dispute therefore requires in the first place a determination of the question whether the several ventures in which the employer of these workmen are engaged form one industrial unit with the particular venture in which these workmen are employed.