Order.-The petitioner is the managing partner of a firm which owns a factory at Karur where bedsheets and towels are manufactured on handlooms. The real question that arises for determination in this application, filed under Article 226 of the Constitution for the issue of an appropriate writ to the respondents, to restrain them from enforcing the provisions of the Employees Provident Fund Act (XIX of 1952) and the scheme framed thereunder against the petitioner firm, was whether it “employed” 50 persons or more in the factory within the meaning of section 1(3) of that Act.

The position was to some extent clarified after the first respondent filed a supplementary counter affidavit. The seven persons enumerated in paragraphs 2 of that affidavits belonged to the office staff of the petitioner’s factory, and they were paid wages on a monthly rate. It was only with reference to these seven persons that contributions were claimed by the first respondent under the provisions of the scheme framed under Act XIX of 1952. But even that claim could be justified only if the Act applied to the petitioner’s factory, that is, only if it could be found that 50 or more persons were “employed” in tha

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