1976 (8) TMI 177

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..... ry buildings for installing extra spindles and for expanding production. Construction workers were, naturally, employed to do the work of actual construction of these additional buildings 3. The question arose whether these construction workers were employees within the meaning of the Employees' Mate Insurance Act, 1948. If they were, then the respondents were under a statutory obligation to pay the contribution to the Employees' State Insurance Corporation, if not, not. The Employees' State Insurance Court (District Judge), Combater, took the view that these construction workers must be regarded as employees falling within the statutory definition. On appeal by the mills concerned, Venkataraman, J., in a common judgment, h .....

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..... lant was installed, to mercerize the yarn produced by the existing factory. The learned Judge took the view that construction workers who had put up these buildings would fall within the statutory definition of employee . The learned Judge's remand to the District Judge was only to ascertain which of the construction workers had constructed the additional factories, as such, on the one hand, and which of them had constructed the other new buildings like creche, rest house, etc , on the other. But, on the principle of the Bench decision in Employee's State Insurance Corporation v. Sri Sakthi Textile (P.) Ltd. (supra) we feel that there is no scope for the further inquiry contemplated by the learned Judge. We cannot see any acceptabl .....

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..... the factory. I here might be cases where attendants, watchmen, etc., are employed to take care of the workers' rest house, creches, cycle stands, etc. The work these men do might well be regarded as being 'incidental to the work of the factory on the anology of the work done by the gardeners in factory gardens, in Ihugaraja Cheitiar v. Employees' State insurance Corporation (1963) 24 F.J.R. 400, a Division Bench of this Court held that gardeners employed in a factory would come within the statutory description, persons employed in work connected with the factory. But the construction workers who put up the additional constructions have no similar nexus with the factory work as such. This is because they are birds of passage, .....

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