The main legal point established in the judgment is that the engagement in blending, packing, and processing of coffee for more than seven months in a year disqualifies a factory from being considered a seasonal factory under Section 2(19A) of the ESI Act, 1948.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Writ Appeal is filed under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent to set aside the order in W.P.No.13712 of 2014 dated 10.08.2022.)

S. Vaidyanathan, J.

This Writ Appeal has been filed against the order dated 10.08.2022 of the learned Single Judge, in and by which, the Writ Petition filed by the Appellant herein, questioning the order issued by the respondent herein, under Section 45-A of the Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 (in short the ‘ESI Act, 1948) was dismissed.

2. For the sake of brevity, the parties would be referred to as per the original nomenclature as indicated in this Appeal as ‘Appellant Factory’ and ‘Respondent’.

3. The facts leading to filing of the Writ Petition and the subsequent Writ Appeal by the Appellant Factory are as follows:

i) the Appellant Factory, having one of the factories at Coimbatore, is into the business of manufacturing pure coffee, coffee and chicory mixture in the name and style of M/s.Brooke Bond India Limited and the Appellant Factory does not deal with the process of chicory as a separate item.

ii) It was the stand of the Appellant that there was another company called Lipton India Limited, which had tea factories in various places and in the year 1991, M/s.Brooke Bond India Limited and Lipton India Limited got merged with a change in nomenclature as Brooke Bond Lipton India Limited. Later on, there was yet another merger with Hindustan Lever Limited / Appellant herein;

iii) On 06.12.2010, the Social Security Officer of the Respondent had visited the unit of the Appellant in respect of coverage of ESI Scheme and by communication dated 10.02.2011, it was informed that the Appellant Factory was liable to be covered with effect from 01.01.2010. After producing the legal history of tea and coffee factories of Brooke Bond India Limited and Lipton India Limited, an personal hearing was afforded on 30.08.2013, in which, it was resolved to ask the Social Security Officer to re-visit the factory to ascertain whether the activity being carried on in the Appellant Factory falls within the definition of seasonal factory in terms of Section 2(19A) of the ESI Act, 1948. Section 2(19A) of the ESI Act, 1948 reads as under:

"(19A) "seasonal factory" means a factory which is exclusively engaged in one or more of the following manufacturing processes, namely, cotton ginning, cotton or jute pressing, decortication of groundnuts, the manufacture of coffee, indigo, lac, rubber, sugar (including gur) or tea or any manufacturing process which is incidental to or connected with any of the aforesaid processes and includes a factory which is engaged for a period not exceeding seven months in a year.

(a) in any process of blending, packing or repacking of tea or coffee; or

(b) in such other manufacturing process as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify."

iv) The Appellant Factory is in the process of blending, processing and packing of tea, falling under the purview of the above provision and in the Appellant Factory, a canteen is being maintained for the benefit of its employees and there was also deployment of security guards through an agency, apart from engaging an outside agency for housekeeping and a Contractor for civil work. The Appellant Factory is not involved in running the canteen or engaging security guards or persons for cleaning activities.

v) The Appellant Factory had registered itself as a Principal Employer and is holding a Certificate of Registration and there were four Contractors supplying manpower to the Appellant Factory at Hosur, who are also holding a valid license under the said Act. Since the business of the Contractors will not come within the definition of seasonal factory, the provisions of the ESI Act will apply to their employees. In 2010, the Respondent informed that the Contractors, calling upon them