MANAGEMENT OF SAFDARJUNG HOSPITAL, NEW DELHI versus KULDIP SINGH SETHI

Citation: [1971] 1 S.C.R. 177 · Decided: 01-04-1970 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: M. HIDAYATULLAH · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Cited by 4 judgment(s) · cites 3 · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

A 
B 
c 
D 
E 
F 
G 
H 
MANAGEMENT OF SAFDARJUNG HOSPITAL, 
NEW DELHI 
v. 
KULDIP SINGH SETHI 
(With Connected Appeals) 
April l, 1970 
177 
(M. HIDAYATULLAH, C.J., J.C. SHAH, K. S. HEGDE, A. N. GROVER, 
A. N. RAY AND I. D. DUA, JJ.] 
Industrial Disputes Act 
(14 of 1941), s. 2(i), (k), n(s) 
and First 
Schedule-Hospital when an industry-Inclusion of hospitals in 
the 
Schedule-Effect of. 
(I) The definition of industry in s. 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 
1947 is in two parts. 
But it must be read as a whole. 
So reaa it 
denotes a collective enterprise in which employers and employees are 
associated. It does not exist either by employers alone or by employees 
alone. It exists only when there is a relationship between employers and 
employees, the former engaged in business, trade, undertaking, manufac-
ture or calling of employers and the latter engaged in any calling, service. 
employment handicraft or industrial occupati.on or avocation. 
But every 
case of employment is not necessarily productive of an industry. 
A 
\vorkrnan is to be regarded as one employed in an industry only if he is 
following one of the vocations mentioned in conjunction with his em-
ployers engaged in the vocations mentioned in relation to the employers, 
namely, any business, trade," unde:rtaking manufacture or calling of 
employers, 
In the collocation of the terms and their definitions these 
terms have a definite economic content of a particular type and on the 
authorities of this Court have been uniformly accepted as excluding pro-
fessions and are only concerned with the production, distribution and 
consumption of wealth and the production and availability of material 
services. 
Industry has thus been accepted to 
mean only 
t'rade 
and 
business, manufacture, or undertaking analogous to trade or business for 
the production of material goods or \vealth and material services. 
\laterial services involve an activity carried on throi;e>h co-operation 
between employers and employees to provide the community with the 
use of something such as electric po"'·er, water, transportation, mail 
delivery, telephones and the like. 
In providing these services there may 
be employment of trained men and even professional men, but the em-
phasis is not on what they do but upon the productivity of a service 
organised as an industry and c:ommercially valuable, in \\hich, something 
is brought into existence quite apart 'from the benefit to particular indi-
viduals; and it is the production ,of this something which is described as 
the production of material services. 
Thus, the services of professional 
men involving benefit to individuals according to their needs, 
such as 
doctors, teachers. lawyers, solicitors, etc. are easily distinguishable from 
an activity such as transport service. 
They are not engaged in an .occu-
pation in which employers md employees cooperate in the production or 
sale -of commodities or arrangement for the production or sale or dis-
tribution and their services cannot be described as material services and 
are outside the ambit of industry. 
It, there '.ore, follows that before an 
industrial dispute can be raised between employers and employers or 
between employers and employees or- between employees and employees in 
relation to the employment or non-employment or the terms of employ-
ment or with the conditions of labour of any person, there must first 
178 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
( 1971 J I S.C.R. 
De established a relationship of cn1ploycrs an<l employees associating 
logethcr, the former following a trade, business, manufacture, under-
taking or calling of employers in the production of material goods and 
material services and the Jatt2r tallowing any calling, service, employ-
n1cnt, handicraft or industri<ll occupation or avocation of \vorkmcn in 
11iJ of the employe·rs·' enterprise. It is not necessary that there 
must 
be 
profit motive, but the enterprise n1ust be analogous to trade or business 
in a commercial sense. [183 H; 184 G-H; 185 C, H; 186 H; 187 A-B, 
E-G; 188 F-HJ 
(2) The decision in Suuc of Bo111hay v. Hospital Mazdoor Sabha, 
j 1960] 2 S.C.R. 866 holding that a Government hospital was an industry 
look an extreme view of the matter and cannot be justified, because : 
{a) it was erroneously held that the second part of the definition of 
'industry' was an extension of the first part, whereas, they are only the 
two aspects of the occupation of employers and employees in an in-
dl

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