Casual employment does not warrant coverage under the Employees State Insurance Act due to the lack of a master-servant relationship.

1 The question before us in this appeal is one which had come up before us on earlier occasions and in view of the fairly elaborate arguments addressed before us in this case we feel it appropriate to deal with the question in some detail in this appeal.

2 We had occasion to consider the question of coverage, under the provisions of the Employees State Insurance Act, of persons casually engaged. We held that such casual workmen are not within the scope of coverage under the Act. But we are afraid that in some cases before the Employees Insurance Courts of the State our decision has not been applied in its true spirit. That is possibly because the use of the term 'casual labour' in that context has not been properly understood in such cases by the Employees State Insurance Court. That is the reason why we propose to deal with the question here, now that the question is raised before us in this appeal.

3 The appellant before us is the Regional Director of the Employees State Insurance Corporation. The complaint is that the Employees Insurance Court was in error in holding that the employees of the applicant were not liable to be covered merely because they were employed for a short period. The applicant was a Cooperative Pharmacy engaged in the manufacture and sale of Ayurvedic medicines. According to the applicant the regular employees were only 9 in number and they had to employ temporarily more number of persons during a period of about 20 to 25 days on account of the fact that they obtained an order from the State Government for supply of medicines. To cope with that order they had to manufacture more medicines than was normal. It was on that account that they took into service some more employees for a period of 20 to 25 days. These persons were not, according to the applicant, liable to be covered as they were casual employees or casual workers. That plea seems to have appealed to the court. Consequently it has been found that the applicant had not employed the required number of workers in the factory calling for coverage.

4 It was in the decision in A. S.789 of 1972 and 55 of 1973 that we happened to notice that a casual worker would not come within the scope of the Act. But after considering the case we observed there that "a casual worker of the nature with which we are concerned in these cases" would not be an employee. The relevant part of the judgment is in Para.4 which runs thus:
"The very term "employ" means 'keeping a person in service'. It is different from engagement which may be of a casual nature. A person employs his driver, his gardener, his house keeper and Ayaah for the children. But in that sense a person does not employ workmen who are engaged casually to take goods from the shop to the residence, or to do such other work which is of a casual nature. The mere fact that wages are paid for a particular item of work does not create a relationship which may properly be termed as that of an employee. In other words every engagement is not an employment. Employment excludes such engagements as are of a casual nature. That is quite in keeping with the spirit of the Act, for, the Act envisages contribution by the employer as well as the employee and the benefit to be conferred upon such employee in the form of medical, maternity and other amenities. That being the case we do not think that a casual worker of the nature with which we are concerned in these cases would be an employee in whose case coverage is called for."

5 We referred to the above decision in E.S.I Corp. v. United Electrical Industries, 1975 KLT 714. We said in that decision thus:
"The mere fact that certain workmen are referred to as casual workmen does not, of course, determine their character but if, from the facts, it is found that they are not "employed" by the employer but are mainly engaged for casual labour, then, of course, there is no scope for demanding contribution in respect of such workmen".

6 We had occasion to consider this in the decis