NEW DELHI: A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has referred to a seven-Judge Bench the question relating to the interpretation of the word `industry' in the Industrial Disputes Act.

In the perception of the five-Judges, the liberal interpretation of the word `industry', in force for the last 23 years, with over emphasis on workers, had affected the interests of employers, forcing many industries to close down.

The Bench, headed by Justice N. Santosh Hegde, pointed out that the experience of the Apex Court over the years had been that the labour courts were giving over emphasis on the rights of workers and undue curtailment of the rights of employers to organise their business.

This, the Bench said, gave rise to large number of industrial and labour claims, resulting in awards, granting huge amounts of back wages allegedly as legitimate dues of the workers found to be illegally terminated or retrenched.

The Bench, which included Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari, Justice Arun Kumar and Justice B.N. Srikrishna, said industrial awards granting heavy packages of back wages, sometimes result in taking away the very substratum of the industry.

The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, was amended in 1982 to give a wide definition for the word `industry'.

The apex court considered this and since different Benches gave varying interpretation, the issue was referred to a five-judge Bench.

In its judgment, the five-judge Bench said that experience was that many times idle wages were required to be paid to the worker because the employer had no means to find out whether and where the workman was gainfully employed pending adjudication of the industrial dispute raised by him.

Exploitation of workers and the employers had to be equally checked.

The Bench noted that a worker-oriented approach in construing the definition of industry, unmindful of the interest of the employer, would be a one-sided approach and not in accordance with the provisions of the Act.

The Bench felt that industrial law should be so interpreted to ensure that neither the employers nor the employees were in a position to dominate the other.

An over-expansive definition of the word `industry' might be a deterrent to private enterprises in India where public employment opportunities were scarce.

In the light of the apex court experience over the years, the Bench referred to a larger Bench to give such meaning and effect to the definition of `industry' in the present context.

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