H.R. ADYANTHAYA V. SANDOZ (INDIA) LTD. (1994) 5 SCC 737
FACTS
R. Adyanthaya, the appellant, was an employee of Sandoz (India) Ltd., the respondent. Adyanthaya was appointed as a Medical Representative (MR) by Sandoz (India) Ltd.
The company introduced a scheme in 1973 to provide additional increment to MRs who had completed five years of service as on 31st December 1973.
Adyanthaya contended that he was entitled to the additional increment under the scheme. The company denied his claim, stating that he was not eligible as he had not completed five years of service as on 31st December 1973.
Adyanthaya filed a suit in the City Civil Court, which ruled in favor of the company. Aggrieved by the decision, Adyanthaya appealed to the High Court, which reversed the decision of the City Civil Court and ruled in favor of Adyanthaya.
The company then appealed to the Supreme Court.
ISSUE
Whether the ‘medical representatives’ as they are commonly known, are workmen according to the definition of ‘workman’ under Section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947?
CASE REFERRED TO
A three-Judge Bench of this court in May & Baker (India) Ltd. v. Workmen [AIR 1967 SC 678] had to deal directly with the question as to whether the medical representative of the company, who was discharged from service, was a workman under the ID Act and the order of reinstatement passed by the Industrial Tribunal was, therefore, valid.
The Court referred to the undisputed nature of the duties of the employee and found that his main work was that of canvassing sales. Any clerical or manual work that he had to do was incidental to the said main work, and could not take more than a small fraction of the time for which he had to work. In the circumstances, the Court held that the Tribunal’s conclusion that the employee was a workman under the ID Act was incorrect.
The Court also observed that the Tribunal in that case seemed to have been led away by the fact that the employee had no supervisory duties and had to work under the direction of his superior officers. The Court held that this would not necessarily mean that the employee’s duties were mainly manual or clerical. The Court held that from what the Tribunal had found, it was clear that the employee’s duties were mainly neither clerical nor manual and, therefore, he was not a workman. Hence the Court set aside the Tribunal’s direction for reinstating the employee.
Sundarambal v. Government of Goa, Daman & Diu [(1988) 4 SCC 42] was a case of a teacher in a school conducted by a private society. Her services were terminated on 25.4.1975 which gave rise to the industrial dispute. Two questions raised were whether the school was an industry and whether the teacher was a workman under the ID Act.
We are not concerned with the first question in this case. While answering the second question, the Court considered the meaning of the words “skilled or unskilled, manual, supervisory, technical or clerical work” in the definition of workman under the ID Act and held that if an employee is not a person engaged in doing work falling in any of the said categories, he would not be a workman at all even though he is employed in an industry.
For this purpose, the Court relied on the May & Baker case, and further held that teachers employed by educational institutions whether they are imparting primary, secondary, graduate or postgraduate education, cannot be called workmen. The Court, therefore, upheld the decision of the High Court that the appellant was not a workman though the school was an industry.
HELD
The definition of ‘workman’ was amended by Amendment 46 of 1982 which was brought into force w.e.f. 21.8.1984. It read as –
“(s) ‘workman’ means any person (including an apprentice) employed in any industry to do any manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work for hire or reward, whether the terms of employment be express or implied, and for the purposes of any proceeding under this Act in relation to an industrial dispute, includes any such person who has been dismissed, discharged or retrenched in connection with, or as a consequence of, that dispute, or whose dismissal, discharge or retrenchment has led to that dispute, but does not include any such person …
The first change brought about by this amendment was that whereas earlier only those who were doing unskilled or skilled manual work were included in the said definition, now those who did any unskilled or skilled work, whether manual or not, came to be included in it.
The second and the most important change that was brought about was that those persons who were employed to do ‘operational’ work were also brought within the fold of the said definition.
What is further necessary to remember is that the Amending Act 46 of 1982 simultaneously brought about a change in the definition of ‘wages’ under Section 2(rr) of the ID Act and for the first time included the following in the said definition:
“(iv) any commission payable on the promotion of sales or business or both.”
The Court has already pointed out as to why the word ‘skilled’ would not include the kind of work done by the sale promotion employees. For the very same reason, the word ‘operational’ would also not include the said work. To hold that everyone who is connected with any operation of manufacturing or sales is a workman would render the categorisation of the different types of work mentioned in the main part of the definition meaningless and redundant.
In the present case, the classification made between two categories of the sales promotion employees, viz., those drawing wages up to a particular limit and those drawing wages above it, is fairly intelligible. The object of the legislation further appears to be to give protection of the service conditions to the weaker sections of the employees belonging to the said category.
The interpretation suggested would in effect mean that all employees of the establishment other than those expressly accepted in the definition are workmen within the meaning of the said definition. The interpretation was specifically rejected by this Court in May & Baker, WIMCO, Burmah Shell and A. Sundarambal cases. Although such an interpretation was given in K. Verma, Delton Cables and Ciba Geigy cases the legislature impliedly did not accept the said interpretation as is evident from the fact that instead of amending the definition of ‘workman’ on the lines interpreted in the said latter cases, the legislature added three specific categories, viz., unskilled, skilled and operational.
The ‘unskilled,’ ‘skilled’ were divorced from ‘manual’ and were made independent categories. If the interpretation suggested was accepted by the legislature, nothing would have been easier than to amend the definition of ‘workman’ by stating that any person employed in connection with any operation of the establishment other than those specifically expected is a workman. It must further be recommended that the independent categories of ‘unskilled’, ‘skilled’ and ‘operational’ were added to the main part of the definition after the SPE Act was placed on the statute book.