Manufacturing process and worker.

These are two connected Revisions arising from the convictions and sentences of the learned Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Tanjore, in S.T.C. Nos. 36 and 37 of 1955.

The facts of these cases have been fully set out in the judgment of the lower Court and need not be recapitulated because the short point for determination in these Revision Cases is whether the Sangu Soap Works, Kuttumavadi Road, Arantangi, is a factory within the meaning of Act (LXIII of 1948).

The Sangu Soap Works can be considered to be a factory only if under section 2 (m) (ii) of the Factories Act twenty or more workers 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 without the aid of power or is ordinarily so carried on. The term “manufacturing process” has been defined in clause (k) of section 2. Sub-clauses (iv) and (v) of this clause are new. They did not occur in the old Act of 1934. Sub-clause (i) has also been made more comprehensive. The present definition is more comprehensive and wider in scope than that of the old Act.

As is plain from the definition the whole premises are a factory even though the manufacturing process is being carried on only in a part of the premises: In re. Ramanathan1. The words “manufacturing process” do not necessarily refer to something produced but to the business carried out. Owner v. Cottingham Sanitary Steam Laundry Co., Ltd2. Thus, a laundry carried on for the purpose of gain in which mechanical power is used for driving machines used in aid of the work of washing clothes is within the definition of a factory. The conversion of raw film into finished product conies within this definition of the section: In re. Sarma3. Putting ginned cotton into bales and having it pressed in the compound of the factory is a work incidental to or connected with manufacturing process within the meaning of the Act: Local Government v. Nusarvanji4. It will depend upon the circumstances of each case whether a particular business carried on comes within the definition of “ manufacturing process” the different processes enumerated in the clauses being merely illustrative. To sum up, to constitute a manufacture there must be a transformation. Mere labour bestowed on an article even if the labour is applied through machinery, will not make it a manufacture, unless it has progressed so far that a transformation ensues and the article becomes commercially known as another and different articile from that as which it began its existence. Whatever is made by human labour, either directly or through the instrumentality of machinery (Abbott Law Dictionary).

"Something of corporeal and substantial nature, something that can be made by man from the matters subjected to his art and skill, or at the least some new made of employing practically his art and skill is required to satisfy the word 'manufactured'". Per Abbott, C.J., in The King v. Wheeler1. See also Gibson v. Brand2.

Having considered the definition of "manufacturing process" set out in clause (k) of section 2 we come to the definition of a "worker" which is defined in clause (1) as meaning "a person employed, directly or through any agency whether for wages or not, in any manufacturing process" or in cleaning any part of the machinery or premises used for a manufacturing process, or in any other kind of work incidental to, or connected with, the manufacturing process, or the subject of the manufacturing process. In other words the workers under this definition fall under three groups viz., persons employed directly or through any agency whether for wages or not (a) in any manufacturing process or (b) in cleaning any part of the machinery or premises used for manufacturing process or (c) in any other kind of work incidental to or connected, with the manufacturing process or the subject of such process: Ramdit v. Emperor3. See also Emperor v. Ganpat4. (For commentaries on " manufacturing process and works,