Definition of word worker.

The petitioner in all these cases is the same and he is the owner of a weaving concern in Karur. He has put up a thatched shed where he has installed a certain number of hand-looms. On these, towels and bed-sheets are manufactured. His office staff consists only of two clerks and they are the only permanent members of his establishment. The residents of the neighbourhood when they have time on their hands and when they feel inclined to do so, go to the petitioner’s shed where they are supplied with yarn. These they weave into towels and bed-sheets and they are paid at certain agreed rates for the articles they so weave. These persons come in when they like and go out when they like. In other words, they work on the premises only when it suits them to do so. The principal occupation of the residents of Karur is agriculture and weaving is only their spare-time occupation. They accept work only according to the time they are able to spare from their agricultural avocations. No one is required to attend on any fixed day. In fact, they are free not to come at all. There are about a hundred similar establishments in Karur and a person who works in one establishment is at liberty to work in any other establishment.

In 1955, the petitioner took out a license for his premises under the Factories Act because he was threatened with prosecution if he failed to do so. All the establishments in Karur which are engaged in weaving towels and bedsheets formed an association called the Karur Weaving and Knitting Factory Owners’ Association. This Association submitted memorials to the Chief Inspector of Factories and to the Government of Madras to exclude their establishments from the operation of the Factories Act, but these memorials were rejected.

Thereafter the Inspector of Factories began to insist on the observance of the rules framed under the Factories Act and the Payment of Wages Act, 1936. The petitioner protested that his concern did not fall under the purview of either of these Acts. But the Inspector of Factories ignored his protests and laid a complaint against him in the Court of the Additional First Class Magistrate, Kulitalai for violation of Rule 103 framed under the Factories Act, the allegation being that he had failed to maintain a muster-roll in the prescribed form. The petitioner was also prosecuted under Rule 105 on the ground that he had failed to keep a bound inspection book containing the particulars prescribed in Form No. 79. He was also prosecuted for violation of Rule 79 read with section 61, for violation of Rule 80 read with section 62, for violation of Rule 87 read with section 83, for violation of Rules 34 and 36 read with section 18, and, for violation of Rules 40 and 62 read with sections 19 and 42. He was further prosecuted for violation of Rule 6-A of the Madras Payment of Wages Rules and Rule 8 of the same Rules, the gravamen of the charges being that he failed to display notices specifying the maximum and minimum rates of wages payable to different classes of workers and the days on which the wages would be paid to them. Yet another prosecution launched against him was under rule 5 of the Madras Maternity Benefit Rules, the charge being that he had failed to maintain a separate muster-roll of women workers.

These petitions have been filed for the issue of appropriate writs or directions restraining the Inspector of Factories, Tiruchirapalli, the Chief Inspector of Factories Madras and the State of Madras from enforcing the provisions of the Factories Act’ the Payment of Wages Act and the Madras Maternity Benefit Act against the petitioner.

The first question that has to be decided in these petitions is whether the persons working in the establishment of the petitioner are workers within the meaning of the Factories Act, 1948. Section 2 (m) of the Factories Act defines “factory” in these terms:

“ ‘factory’ means any premises including the precincts thereof (1) where ten or more workers are working, or were