ORDER
1. The petitioner who is the owner of a rice mill in which he has installed a huller and polishing machine called sheller, has questioned in this writ petition the validity of the notification dated 27-5-1974, issued by the State Government under sub-s. (1) of S. 85 of Factories Act, 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), declaring that all the provisions of the Act except Chapters VI, VII, and VIII thereof shall apply to any place where the manufacturing process or rice milling including hulling and polishing but excluding the place where milling and polishing is carried on entirely by huller and where no paddy sheller is installed, notwithstanding that the number of persons employed therein is less than ten or the persons working therein are not employed by the owner thereof but working with the permission of, or under agreement with such owner, provided that the manufacturing process is not being carried on by the owner only with the aid of his family.
2. The only ground urged by Sri R. U. Goulay, learned counsel for the petitioner, was that since no manufacturing process was carried on in a rice mill where a huller and sheller were installed, it was incompetent for the State Government to issue the notification in question, as in respect of a place where no manufacturing process was being carried on no such notification could be issued. I support of his submission, he relied on the decision of this Court in The State v. R. Raghurama Shetty (1975) 2 Kar. L.J., 185, in which it was held that the process of converting paddy into rice was not a manufacturing process. That decision is of no assistance to the petitioner because the question involved in that case was whether the purchase turnovers of the assessee therein who were owners of rice mills were taxable under the provisions of the Karnataka Sales Tax Act, 1957, or not. The decision was based on the enunciation made in corpus juris secundum and Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary. The case on hand stands entirely on a different footing. The expression “manufacturing process” has been given a wider connotation by the definition given in S. 2(k) of the Act. Unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context while interpreting the Act, we have got to apply the definition found in S. 2(k) wherever the expression “manufacturing process” appears in it. The relevant part of S. 2(k) read :
“‘Manufacturing process’ means any process for – (1) making, altering, repairing, ornamenting, finishing, packing, oiling, washing, cleaning, breaking up, demolishing, or otherwise treating or adapting any article or substance with a view to its use, sale, transport, delivery or disposal, or …..”
3. If the opinion expressed in Raghurama Shetty’s case (supra) referred to above is adopted for the purpose of interpreting the expression “manufacturing process” appearing in the Act, a large number of places to which the Act is now being applied, would get excluded from the purview of the Act. It is not denied that the process of breaking up any article or substance or giving a finishing touch to any article or substance, would bring the process within the scope of the definition of the expression “manufacturing process” in S. 2(k). The Act has been enacted for the welfare of the workers and deals with the matters connected with health, safety, welfare, working hours of the workers, employment of young persons and leave to be granted to workers. The provisions therein have, therefore, to be given an interpretation which would be in conformity with the express provisions of the Act and the intention of the Legislature in passing it. Hence, the interpretation placed by this Court in Raghurama Shetty’s case (supra) on the expression “manufacturing process” cannot be followed while interpreting the provisions of the Act. The activity carried on in the place where the petitioner has been running his huller and sheller amounts to a process by which paddy is broken up and rise is given a finishing while it is polished. The said process is a manufacturing process as defined in the Act. There is, therefore, no substance in the writ petition.
