Rajamannar, C.J.

The decision of this appeal turns on the application of the definition of "employee" in the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, to seven persons employed in the office of the managing agents of the Lotus Mills, Ltd., Coimbatore. Lotus Agency (Private), Ltd., are the managing agents. The learned District Judge of Coimbatore decided that they were not "employees."

"Employee" is defined in S.2(9) of the aforesaid Act thus

"'employee, ' means any person employed for wages in or in connexion 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; ............" *

For the purpose of this appeal Sub-cls. (ii) and (iii) are not material. "Factory" is thus defined :

"'Factory, ' means any premises including the precincts thereof whereon twenty or more persons are working or were working on any day of the preceding twelve months, and in any part of which a manufacturing process is being carried on with the aid of power or is ordinarily so carried on but does not include a mine subject to the operation of the Indian Mines Act, 1923 (IV of 1923), or a railway running shed; " *

As it was not clear to us what was the exact work which the seven persons from whom contribution was demanded under the provisions of the said Act were doing, we asked both the learned Government Pleader and the counsel appearing for the employees to the file before us statements setting out the particulars of the work which had been allotted to each of them. We have now been given the requisite information which we set out below :(1) Ganapathia Pillai (who has since died on 9 January 1958), general supervision of the work in the managing agents' office.

(2) A. N. Venkatachalam Chettiar, Assistant Secretary in charge of the managing agents' office, in status next to the Secretary, entrusted with the overall responsibility for running the managing agents' office.

(3) C. V. Vaidyalingam, supervisory official in charge of the managing agents' office. After Ganapathia Pilla's death he has been doing the work of general supervision of the managing agents' office also.

(4) T. N. Kanthanathan, cashier for disbursement of pay to all officers and staff and wages to workers of the mill.

(5) R. Rangaswami Rao, typist, attending to all typists' work in the managing agents' office.

(6) V. Radhakrishnan, clerk, attending general clerical work in the managing agents' office.

(7) A. R. Ramaswami Chettiar, ledger clerk in charge of the maintenance of the ledgers and the cash book of the managing agents' office.

The learned Government Pleader contended that the definition of "employee" in S.2(9) of the Act should be broadly construed and it should be held that persons employed in the office of a managing agent for an industrial or manufacturing establishment must be deemed to be employed on any work incidental or preliminary to, or connected with the work of the factory or establishment.

Now, "the work, " which is the prime factor, is the work of the factory. "Factory" means the premises wherein a manufacturing process is being carried on. It follows that only persons who are in some manner or another connected with the said work, viz., manufacturing process, that can be said to be "employees" within the meaning of the definition. There are, no doubt, the words "incidental or preliminary to, " but both these have to be understood in conjunction with the words "with the work of the factory." So, the work done by the person in question should be work incidental or preliminary to the work of the factory as such. No decided case of this Court was cited to us which has a direct bearing on the point. A ruling of a Division Bench of this Court in Employees' States Insurance Corporation v. S. M. Sriramulu N