The tests for determining whether two units form part of one establishment under section 25E (iii) of the Industrial Disputes Act are: * Unity of ownership * Unit of management and control * Unity of finance * Unity of labour * Unity of employment * Unity of functional "integrality"

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. That precisely is the question which has arisen in these two appeals between the management of the Pratap Press and its workmen. This Press was started by its proprietor Shri Narendra in 1951. He started the publication of the paper Vir Arjun in April 1954. He was also one of the partners of the firm which owned another paper the Daily Pratap. A dispute over a claim of bonus raised by the workmen of the Press having been referred to the Industrial Tribunal, the workmen contended in the first place that the three activities - the Press, the Vir Arjun as also the Daily Pratap - were in reality the industrial ventures of one family consisting of Shri Narendra and his sons and the working results - whether profit or loss of these three concerns should be pooled together for the decision of the question what bonus, if any, should be paid. Their alternative contention was that the result of the Press only should be considered. The employer contended that the workmen s contention that the three concerns should be treated as one could not be accepted inasmuch as the ownership of the Daily Pratap was a partnership firm of which he was only one of the partners while the other two, viz., the Press and the Vir Arjun, were owned by him. His case was that these two, the Press and the Vir Arjun, were parts of one single industry and the total results of these two have to be considered in deciding whether bonus should be allowed or not. The Industrial Tribunal accepted the employer s contention that the results of the Daily Pratap could not be taken into consideration for the simple reason that the ownership of the Daily Pratap was different from the ownership of the Pratap Press and the Vir Arjun paper. On the next question whether the Pratap Press and the Vir Arjun form one industrial unit or two distinct industrial units its decision was however against the employer s contention. On a consideration of the materials before it held that the Vir Arjun was a distinct and separate industrial entity from the Pratap Press and so the results of the Vir Arjun could not be taken into consideration in deciding the question of bonus. It may be mentioned here that the question is of considerable importance in the facts of these appeals as admittedly if the working results of Vir Arjun are taken into consideration the position would be that Vir Arjun having incurred losses in each of these years these would wipe out the profits made by the Pratap Press in those years and no surplus profits would remain for distribution as bonus.

2. The question whether the two activities in which the single owner is engaged are one industrial unit or two distinct industrial units is not always easy of solution. No hard and fast rule can be laid down for the decision of the question and each cas