JUDGMENT

VIKRAMAJIT SEN,J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The legal nodus that arise in the present Appeals before us are whether the existing canteen at Moradabad Division of the Northern Railway i.e., the subject Canteen, is located in a ‘Factory’ within the meaning of Section 46 of the Factories Act, 1948; and consequently, whether the services of the staff employed in the subject Canteen ought to be regularized. These Appeals have been preferred against the Judgment passed by the Division Bench of the High Court of New Delhi in LPA No. 19 of 2012, whereby the Orders passed in Writ Petition No. 6582 of 2003 and Review Petition No. 670 of 2011 have been set aside and it has been held that the subject Canteen is a ‘Non Recognized and Non Statutory’ canteen.

3. We shall briefly narrate the facts leading up to the present lis. The Appellants are employed in the subject Canteen, which has been running within the precincts of the Divisional Railway Manager (hereinafter referred to as “the DRM”), Moradabad since 1940 and has been catering to more than 100 employees, (in fact, well over 500) since its establishment. In 1963, the Respondent No. 1, namely the Chairman, Railway Board, issued a Circu