Judgement

VENKATARAMIAH, J. : - The appellant is M/s. Isha Steel Treatment, Bombay, a firm carrying on the business of metal processing, i.e., heat treatment of metals. In the year 1963 it established a factory (hereinafter referred to as the I Unit) for the purpose of carrying on the business of metal processing, with about 32 workmen. Nearly 12 years after the establishment of the I Unit it established a second factory (hereinafter referred to as the II Unit) for carrying on the same kind of business employing about 75 workmen about 200 yards away from the I Unit. Both the units had independent location, separate factory licences and separate municipal licences. The said two units also had separate stores and maintained separate accounts and balance sheets. The workmen of both the units were also employed independently and there was a separate muster roll in respect of each of the two units. There was no rule or condition regarding the inter-transferability of the workmen. On finding that the workmen of the I Unit " were wilfully slacking their work and that there was growing indiscipline among them, the appellant decided in the year 1981-82 to reduce the three shifts working prev