1. In exercise of the power conferred by S.1 (5) of the Employees' State Insurance Act, 34 of 1948, authorising appropriate Governments to extend the provisions of the Act to establishments other than factories also, if such establishments were industrial, commercial, agricultural or otherwise, the State Government published a notification on 18 91974 extending the provisions of the Act to six categories of establishments, the third being "shops", with effect from 29 31975 After that when steps were taken to make the appellants comply with the provisions of the Act on the ground that their establishments were shops they resisted and approached the Employees' Insurance Court. There they did not succeed. That is why they have come up here in appeal.

2. The appellants are distributors of cinematograph films. According to them they do not purchase or sell films, but only distribute them and that on commission basis and so their establishments are not shops.

3. In the popular sense places where trade or business is carried on are also shops even if no sale of commodities takes place there. That that is the popular sense in which that word is used in this State is

clear from the Shops and commercial Establishments Act, a State enactment of 1960, wherein "shop" is defined to mean any premises where any business is carried on or service is rendered to customers.

4. In M/s. Beeyems Construction Co. v. Government of Kerala and others ILR.1978(2) Kerala 1 the establishment involved was a construction company. It was engaged in the work of civil contract and for that several workers were employed from time to time at the site. In order to co-ordinate the work and supervise the same an office was established. The question was whether that was a shop when as a matter of fact no sale of goods took place there. The decision was that it was a shop.

5. A sale need not necessarily be of goods. It can be of resource services also. There are demands for resource services as for goods and there are buyers for both. Like goods, services of resources also fetch price. Price paid for service by its user to the resource owner is for its utility.

6. At the two ends of any industry, whether it is 'manufacturing' like motion-picture, textile and leather or 'non-manufacturing' like agriculture, forestry and fishing are production and consumption. In between comes dis jribution That is the economic activity by which goods and services are readily made available to the consumers.

7. Traders, intermediaries, middlemen and exhibitors are all distributors of products. Theirs also is specialised work. They know best the tastes and wants of consumers and the demand and supply position. They pay for transport, storage, grading, packaging and advertising. Finance and risk are involved in their activities. They have an important part to play in the growth of industries. There is now separate research for marketing and distribution.

8. Due to technological development, division of labour and specialisation, large scale manufacture and increased output of products and consequent reduction of their cost of production are possible Producers who concentrate on that work cannot afford to spend considerable time in the distribution of the goods produced That they leave to the distributor. The producer does not get all that the consumer pays for the goods The difference goes to the distributor who renders service in return and service is sometimes rendered on commission-basis.

9. There need not necsssarily be a building or land for conducting a shop or market. Instead of meeting at a particular place buyers and sellers scattered all over the world can deal with one another by telephone or telegram or cable or post. Real estate markets, foreign exchange markets, share markets and labour markets are examples of dealings being not confined to a place.

10. Film industry is the child of the laboratory and the machine. It has a history of over 85 years. It is so expensive that