Judgement

DUA, J.: This appeal by special leave is directed against the order of a learned Single Judge of the Allahabad High Court affirming on revision under Section 115 Civil P. C. the order of the learned Additional District Judge, Jhansi, who had allowed the respondent s appeal from the order of the learned City Magistrate, Jhansi, made on an application presented by the respondents under Section 15 of the Payment of Wages Act IV of 1936. The City Magistrate was the "authority" appointed under Section 15 and the District Court was the court of appeal under Section 17 of the said Act. The respondents through the Assistant Secretary of the National Railway Mazdoor Union Work Shop Branch, Jhansi had asserted in their application under Section 15 that they were workers within the meaning of Section 2 (1) of the Factories Act (63 of 1948) and complained that they were denied wages for overtime work done by them on the erroneous ground that they were not workers within the aforesaid provision. The learned Magistrate held that the respondents had been entrusted with purely clerical duties and they were not connected in any manner with the manufacturing process. On this conclusion their application was dismissed.

2. On appeal the learned Additional District Judge disagreed with this view and came to the conclusion that the work done by the respondents was incidental to or connected with the manufacturing process. It was observed in the order that some of the respondents were entrusted with the duty of checking the time of work of each worker in the workshop, a few others were time-keepers and the remaining respondents prepared account sheets on the basis of the time sheets and did other work incidental to the running of the work-shop including payment of wages to the staff of the workshop and the office. The High Court on revision, as already observed, affirmed the order of the learned Additional District Judge.

3. On appeal in this Court the short question we are called upon to decide is whether the respondents, who are time-keepers fall within the purview of the definition of "worker" as contained in Section 2 (1) of the Factories Act.

4. The respondents have raised a preliminary objection that the appeal is incompetent on the ground that respondent No. 29 (T. A. Kolalkar) had died after the order of the High Court but his name continued to appear in the array of respondents. As his legal representatives had not been brought on the record, the appeal against him is incompetent and since there was a joint application on behalf of all the respondents which was dealt with and decided by a common order by the learned Magistrate, the appeal against the other respondents must also be held to be incompetent. The impugned order having become final as against the deceased T. A. Kolalkar, the present appeal against other respondents should, according to the argument, be held to be incompetent because the reversal of the impugned order as against them would give rise to conflicting decisions on the point. Recently this Court disallowed a similar objection in Indian Oxygen Ltd. v. Shri Ram Adhar Singh, Civil Appeal No. 1444 of 1966 D/- 24-9-1968 (SC) and when the attention of the respondents learned counsel was drawn to that decision, the objection was not seriously pressed.

5. We now turn to the merits of the appeal. The word "worker" is defined in Section 2 (1) of the Factories Act to mean "a person employed directly or through any agency, whether for wages or not, in any manufacturing process, or in cleaning any part of the machinery or premises used for a manufacturing process, or in any other kind of work incidental to, or connected with, the manufacturing process, or the subject of the manufacturing process". This definition seems to us to be fairly wide because it takes within its sweep not only persons employed in any manufacturing process but also in cleaning any part of the machinery or premises used for a manufacturing process and g