These are Criminal Revision Cases which have been filed against the convictions and sentences of the Additional First Class Magistrate, Tiruchirapalli, in S.T. Nos. 1138 and 1141 of 1951 respectively.

The facts are:-The petitioners before us who were respectively accused in the lower Court were running cigar factories in Tiruchirapalli Town. There is no dispute that each of these businesses is employing only less than 20 workers and that the manufacturing process is being carried on without the aid of Electric power. P.W. 1, the Assistant Inspector of Labour, First Circle, Tiruchirapalli, visited these places and noted certain contravention of the provisions of the Factories Act which need not detain us here. These petitioners Arumugham Pillai and Sundaram Pillai were prosecuted for infraction of the provisions of the Factories Act. Each of them was fined Rs. 10 or in default to simple imprisonment for ten days. The point taken is that these business premises are not factories within the meaning of the Indian Factories Act and that the lower Court should have held that the G.O. No. 2210 (Development Department), dated 22nd April, 1948 is illegal and ultra vires.

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