A canteen attached to a factory is considered to be part of the factory, and the workers in the canteen are employees of the factory for the purpose of the Employees' State Insurance Act.

( 1 ) THIS is an appeal under Section 82 (2) of the Employees State Insurance Act (34 of 1948) (hereinafter referred to as the Act) against the order of the Employees Insurance Court, Hyderabad, holding that the workmen in the canteen attached to the Sirsilk Limited, Sirpur-Kagaznagar, are employees of the appellant, and, consequently, the appellant is liable to contribute to the Employees insurance fund.

( 2 ) THE Regional Director, the Employees State Insurance Corporation called upon the appellant to make a contribution to this fund for the staff of the canteen. It is to avoid compliance with the requisition of the Regional Director that the appellant had recourse to Section 75 of the Act inviting the decision of the Employees Insurance Court. The Insurance Court took the view that the workmen of the canteen are the employees of the appellant for purposes of the Act and hence the appellant was obliged to contribute to the insurance fund for the workers in the canteen. It is this conclusion of the Insurance Court that is challenged before us.

( 3 ) IT is urged by the learned Advocate General appearing for the appellant that the canteen being an autonomous body managed by the canteen committee, it is a separate entity unconnected with the factory, that there was no contract of service between the employees of the canteen and the management of the factory, that separate accounts are maintained for the canteen and that the employees of the canteen are not under the control and supervision of the management and, therefore, there Is complete dissociation between this institution and tin factory. The learned Advocate-General fortified this argument by adverting to the testimony of D. K. Birla, member of the Managing Committee. On the basis of his evidence, the learned Advocate-General contended that there is no scope for the workmen of the canteen to invoke the aid of the provisions of the Act. He maintains that It is difficult to bring the staff of the canteen within the range and sweep of the relevant sections of the Act.

( 4 ) TO appreciate the contentions urged on either side, it is necessary to lead the sections of the Act and also of the Factories Act (63 of 1948) in so far as they have a material bearing on the present enquiry. Section 2 (9) of the Act defines an"employee" thus: " employee means any person employed for wages in or in connection with the work of a factory or establishment to which this Act applies and. . . . . (i) who is directly employed by the principal employer on any work of, or incidental or preliminary to or connected with the work of, the factory or establishment, whether such work is done by the employee in the factory or establishment or elsewhere; or (ii) who is employed by or through an immediate employer on the premises of the factory or establishment or under the supervision of the principal employer or his agent on work which is ordinarily part of the work of the factory or establishment or which is preliminary to the work carried on in or incidental to the purpose of the factory or establishment; or xx xx xx xx"

( 5 ) WE are unconcerned with Clause (iii) and, therefore, we need not extract it here.

( 6 ) PAUSING here for a moment, we see that any person employed for wages in or in connection with the work of a factory or establishment or who satisfies the tests propounded in Clause (i), (ii) or (iii) is an "employee. We are unable to accede to the proposition of the learned Advocate-General that the two elements contemplated by the main Clause and any of the Clauses (i) to (iii) should exist before a person could satisfy the definition of an "employee". It looks to us that the word "and" at the and of the main clause is disjunctive. We do not think that it has to be read cumulatively with one or other of the Clauses (i) to (iii) because if the employment must of necessity be in connection with the work of the factory the provisions of Clause (ii) would be intelligible as that