Judgment

RAY, C. J.:- These petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution challenge the validity of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 referred to as the Act and of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Central Rules and Rules of the States of Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

2. The petitioners carry on the business of contractors for construction of roads, buildings, weigh bridges and dams.

3. The Act requires contractors to take out licences. The Act also imposes certain duties and liabilities on the contractors.

4. The Act defines in Section 2 (c) a "contractor" in relation to an establishment to mean a person who undertakes to produce a given result for the establishment, other than a mere supply of goods or Articles of manufacture to such establishment, through contract labour or who supplies contract labour for any work of the establishment and includes a sub-contractor.

5. The other definitions relevant to the meaning of a contractor are establishment, principal employer and workman.

6. "Establishment" as defined in Section 2 (e) of the Act means (i) any office or department of the Government or a local authority, or (ii) any place where any industry, trade, business, manufacture or occupation is carried on.

7. "Principal employer" as defined in Section 2 (g) of the Act means (i) in relation to any office or department of the Government or a local authority, the head of that office or department or such other officer as the Government or the local authority, as the case may be, may specify in this behalf, (ii) in a factory, the owner or occupier of the factory and where a person has been named as the manager of the factory under the Factories Act, 1948, the person so named, (iii) in a mine, the owner or agent of the mine and where a person has been named as the manager of the mine, the person so named, and (iv) in any other establishment, any person responsible for the supervision and control of the establishment.

8. "Workman" is defined in Section 2 (i) of the Act to mean any person employed in or in connection with the work of any establishment to do any skilled, semi-skilled or un-skilled manual, supervisory, technical or clerical work for hire or reward, whether the terms of employment be express or implied.

9. Section 2 (b) of the Act states that a workmen shall be deemed to be employed as "contract labour" in or in connection with the work of an establishment, when he is hired in or in connection with such work by or through a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the principal employer.

10. The petitioners contend that they are not contractors within the definition of the Act. They advance two reasons. First, the work of the petitioners is not any part of the work of the principal employer nor is it the work "in connection with the work of the establishment", namely, principal employer. Second, the work of the petitioners is normally not done in the premises of the "establishment" of the principal employer.

11. Relying on the definitions, counsel for the petitioners contended that establishment means any place where any industry, trade, business, manufacture or occupation is carried on and, therefore, the workmen employed by the petitioners are not contract labour because they are not employed in connection with the work of the establishment. The work of the establishment is, according to the petitioners, not only at the place where the business, trade, industry of the establishment is carried on but also the actual business or trade or industry of the establishment. The entire emphasis is placed by the petitioners on the works a work of any establishment". By way of illustration it is said that if a banking company which is an establishment which carries on its business at Delhi employs the petitioners to construct a building at Allahabad the building to be constructed is not the work of the bank. It is said that the only work of the bank as an establishment is banking work and, therefore,