JUDGMENT - S.M. DAUD, J.:---The interesting question arising in this appeal under section 82(2) of the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948 (E.S.I. Act), is whether the use of electric power for processing the effluent water preparatory to its eventual dispersal, can be termed as a manufacturing process as contemplated by the use of that expression occurring in section 2(12) of the aforementioned Act?

2. The question posed in the first paragraph has to be determined in the backdrop of the following facts :

Respondent Vyankatesh Co-operative Processors Society Limited of Ichalkaranji in District Kolhapur, of which Pandurang Yeshwant Magdum is the Secretary, was in the business of hand-processing grey-cloth at Ichalkaranji. The business being done by the Society involved the processes of bleaching, dyeing and mercerising. The water employed in these processes got polluted and the same had to be treated before its discharge into the Krishna River basin. For the discharge of the effluent, permission had to be obtained from the Maharashtra Prevention of Water Pollution Board under the Maharashtra Prevention of Water Pollution Act (Pollution Act) and such permission had been obtained by

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