Dry cleaning is a manufacturing process within the meaning of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948, and the Factories Act, 1948, and the provisions of the Act apply to dry cleaning establishments.

B. C. Verma, C. J.

1. This judgment shall also dispose of F. A. O. Nos.648 of 1982 and 488 of 1982 as they involved identical questions of facts and law.

2. The respondents are engaged in the business of dry cleaning. For this purpose, they have employed with them, certain number of persons. They are being subjected to the provisions of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948. Their contention is that the process involved in dry cleaning and washing is not a manufacturing process within the definition of the term "factory" under Sec.2 (12) of the Act which defines factory to mean, "any premises including the precincts thereof whereon twenty or more persons are employed or were employed for wages on any day of the preceding twelve months, and in any part of which a manufacturing process is being carried on with the aid of power or is ordinarily so carried on but does not include a mine subject to the operation of the Mines Act, 1952 or a railway running shed" and further stated that the expressions "manufacturing process" and "power" shall have the meaning respectively assigned to them in the Factories Act, 1948 . "manufacturing process" under the Factories Act, is defined as follows:

" (i) making, altering, repairing, ornamenting, finishing, packing, oiling, washing, cleaning, breaking up, demolishing, or otherwise treating or adopting any article or substance with a view to its use, sale, transport, delivery or disposal, or (ii) pumping oil, water, sewerage or any other substance or, (iii) generating, transforming or transmitting power, or (iv) composing types for printing, printing by letterpress, lithography, photogravure or other similar process or bookbinding; or (v) constructing, reconstructing, repairing, refitting, finishing or breaking up ships or vessels; or (vi) preserving or storing any article in cold storage"

The Employees State Insurance Act, 1948, applies to all the factories other than seasonal factories. Sec.1 (5) of the Act empowers the appropriate Government, by a notification in the official gazette to extend the provisions of the Act or any of them to any other establishment or class of establishments, Industrial, Commercial. Agricultural or otherwise. In exercise of the powers so conferred, the Chief Commissioner, Chandigarh, by notification No.10102-SA-III-76/ 10308 dated August 30, 1976, with the approval of the Central Government, extended the provisions of the Act, with effect from September 5, 1976, to the class of establishments, specified in column 2 of the Schedule annexed to the notification and situate within the area specified in column 3 thereof. The notification covers these three types of establishments:

1. Any premises including the precincts thereof whereon ten or more persons but in any case less than twenty persons are employed or were employed for wages on any day of the preceding twelve months, and in any part of which a manufacturing process is being carried on with the aid of power or is ordinarily so carried on, but excluding a mine subject to the provisions of Mines Act, 1952 (35 of 1952), or a railway running shed or any establishment which is exclusively engaged in any of the manufacturing process specified in Clause (12) of Sec.2 of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 (34 of 1948);

2. Any premises including the precincts thereof whereon twenty or more persons employed or were employed for wages 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, but excluding a mine subject to the operation of the Mines Act, 1952 (35 of 1952), or a railway running shed or an establishment which is exclusively engaged in one or more of the manufacturing process specified in Clause (12) of Sec.2 of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 (34 of 1948 ).

3. The following establishments whereon twenty or more persons employed, or were employed, for wages on any day of the