Classification of industries.

Veeraswami, CJ.:-Whether the Pasteur Institute of Southern India, Coonoor, and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Madras, are industries, within the meaning of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, is the common question, for decision in these otherwise unrelated matters. By an order dated 22nd May, 1970, the State Government declined to refer for adjudication the non-employment of one A. Jesudoss in the Institute, and certain demands raised by its workmen through the Institute Staff Union. The Government did so on the view that the Institute could not be considered as an. industry for the purposes of section 2 (j) of the Industrial Disputes Act. The Staff Union unsuccessfully moved under Article 226 of the Constitution for a direction to the State Government to re-consider the question of making a reference. That is the subject-matter of the writ appeal. The Additional Registrar of Trade Unions, Madras by an order dated. 24th July, 1974 cancelled the registration, dated 27th August, 1973 as trade union of the Madras Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Employees and Workers Union. He was of the opinion that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Madras Complex, a branch of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research was not engaged in any trade or industry, but the Complex was established for the purpose of assisting the Scientific and Industrial Research, and that, therefore, the employees of the Complex were not workmen within the meaning of section 2 (g) of the Trade Unions Act, 1926. The Union had appealed under section 11 of the Trade Unions Act from that order. This appeal was directed to be treated as a petition to be dealt with in the Original Side of this Court, but later withdrawn and posted along with the connected writ petition which is also by that Union to direct the State Government to re-consider the question of making a reference of certain items of disputes for adjudication. Since the Government had earlier declined to make a reference on the view that the Complex was not an industry, but a department of Scientific Research and Service, the question we are called upon to resolve is eventually tied up with the facts relating to the character of each of these institutions. But in considering the problem, a basic and general understanding of what is an industry for the purpose of the Industrial Disputes Act and the Trade Unions Act is necessary for its appropriate application to the facts. It may be taken that if the institutions we are concerned with are not industries for the purposes of the Industrial Disputes Act, it will be so also for the purposes of the Trade Unions Act.

Section 2 (j) defines “industry” as meaning “any business, trade, undertaking, manufacture,or calling of employers and includes any calling, service, employment, handicraft, or industrial occupation or avocation of workmen”. Simple as the definition may at first sight appear, its scope has proved to be one of complexity in judicial thinking as is evident from the decided cases. Divergence of opinion on that matter is more in the application of the definition rather than in the conception of industry as defined by the statute.

3. In the abstract, the word “industry” is capable of a much wider significance or import than when it is related and confined to any business, trade, undertaking, manufacture or calling of employers as is done by the first part of the definition in section 2 (j). The dominant element in the first part of the definition, as it appears to us, is the commercial character of productive activity resulting in goods or service, distinct from one of a professional nature. When the first part of the definition is so understood, the inclusive part, having regard to its intimate relation with the first part, is also highlighted by the commercial character of the activity involved in any calling, service, employment, handicraft or industrial occupation or avocation of workmen.

4. These diffe

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