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TMI Blog1978 (8) TMI 239X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... because a decision by this Court as to the width of the definition and consequential fall-out of statutory obligations may cover a considerable number of establishments. We have granted leave to appeal on that basis and now proceed to study the anatomy of 'employee' as defined in Section 2(9) of the Act. 3. A brief factual narration may help get a hang of the case. The High Court, before which the present appellants had filed fruitless appeals has summarised the facts succinctly thus : The appellants are owners of theatres in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, where films are exhibited. Within the same premises as the theatre, in every case, there is a canteen and a cycle stand. The canteen and the cycle stand are leased out to contractors under instruments of lease. The contractors employ their own servants to run the canteen and the cycle stand. In regard to persons so employed by the contractors, the owners of the theatres were treated 'Principal Employers' and notices of demand were issued to them calling upon them to pay contribution under the Employees' State Insurance Act. Thereupon the owners of theatres filed application under Section 75 of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... at all reasonable time for purposes of check and inspection. Ex. P. 9 contains a specific clause in that regard. 5. These features led the Insurance Court to arrive at the following findings of fact. From the several circumstances mentioned above it is clear that these canteens are meant primarily for the convenience and comfort of those visiting the cinema theatres though in a few cases the persons in charge of canteens seem to be allowing the general public also to have access to the canteens taking advantage of the fact that the canteens can be reached directly from the abutting road. But this circumstance does not by itself indicate that these canteens are thrown open to the general public as other hotels, restaurants or eating houses. 6. In regard to cycle stands, the Insurance Court held : Hence it may safely be concluded that these cycle stands are meant exclusively for the convenience of persons visiting the theatres. 7. The Insurance Court found that the owners of theatres were principal employers with reference to the persons employed by contractors in the canteens and the cycle stands attached to the theatres and rejected the applications filed by the owners of theatres ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... more weighty than mere logomachy or grammatical nicety. 10. With this prefatory statement we may go straight to the crucial definition. The essential question is whether a cinema theatre manager who has no statutory obligation to run a canteen or provide a cycle stand but, for the better amenities of his customers and improvement of his business, enters into an arrangement with another to maintain a canteen and a cycle stand and that other employs, on his own, workers in connection with the canteen and the cycle stand, can be held liable for contribution as the principal employer of the workmen although they are engaged independently by the owner of the canteen or the cycle stand. It is common ground that there is no statutory obligation on the part of the appellants to run canteens or keep cycle stands. It is common ground, again that the workers with whom we are concerned are not directly employed by the appellants and, if we go by the master and servant relationship under the law of contracts, there is no employer-employee nexus. Even so, it has been held concurrently by the Insurance Court and the High Court that canteens are meant primarily for the convenience and comfort of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is agent on work which is ordinarily part of the work of the factory or establishment or which is preliminary to the work carried on in or incidental to the purpose of the factory or establishment, or (iii) whose services are temporarily lent or let on hire to the principal employer by the person with whom the person whose services are so lent or let on hire has entered into a contract of service; and includes any person employed for wages on any work connected with the administration of the factory or establishment or any part, department or branch thereof or with the purchase of raw materials for, or the distribution or sale of the products of, the factory or establishment; but does not include :- (a) any member of the Indian naval, military or air forces; or (b) any person so employed whose wages (excluding remuneration for overtime work) exceed five hundred rupees a month :- Provided that an employee whose wages (excluding remuneration for overtime work) exceed five-hundred rupees a month at any time after and not before, the beginning of the contribution period, shall continue to be an employee until the end of that period. 13. The reach and range of the definition is apparent ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ment and may, therefore, be excluded on the score that the employees do not do any work in connection with the establishment, that is, the theatre. In the case of a five-star hotel, for instance, a barber shop or an arcade, massage parlour, foreign exchange counter or tourist assistance counter may be run by some one other than the owner of the establishment but the employees so engaged do work in connection with the establishment or the hotel even though there is no obligation for a hotel to maintain such an ancillary attraction. By contrast, not a lawyer's chamber or architect's consultancy. Nor indeed, is it a legal ingredient that such adjunct should be exclusively for the establishment, if it is mainly its ancillary. 15. The primary test in the substantive clause being thus wide, the employees of the canteen and the cycle stand may be correctly described as employed in connection with the work of the establishment. A narrower construction may be possible but a larger ambit is clearly imported by a purpose-oriented interpretation. The whole goal of the statute is to make the principal employer primarily liable for the insurance of kindred kinds of employees on the premi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... atre. The cinema goers ordinarily find such work an advantage, a facility an amenity and some times a necessity. All that the statute requires is that the work should not be irrelevant to the purpose of the establishment. It is sufficient if it is incidental to it. A thing is incidental to another if it merely appertains to something else as primary. Surely, such work should not be extraneous or contrary to the purpose of the establishment but need not be integral to it either. Much depends on time and place, habits and appetites, ordinary expectations and social circumstances. In our view, clearly the two operations in the present case, namely, keeping a cycle stand and running a, canteen are incidental or adjuncts to the primary purpose of the theatre. 19. We are not concerned with Section 2(9)(iii) nor with the rest of the definitional provision. 20. Shri Chitale tried to convince us that on a minute dissection of the various clauses of the provision it was possible to exclude canteen employees and cycle stand attendants. May-be, punctilious sense of grammar and minute precision of language may sometimes lend unwitting support to narrow interpretation. But language is handmaid, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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