Manufacturing process under the Factories Act covered food preparation, bringing hotel and restaurant premises within factory regulation.

Preparation of meals, refreshments, coffee and other eatables in hotel and restaurant establishments was treated as a manufacturing process within the wide language of Section 2(k) of the Factories Act, 1948, because it involved making or treating articles for use or sale. Where the statutory minimum number of workers was also satisfied, the premises fell within the definition of a factory under Section 2(m), so the Act applied to them. The Act was also characterised in pith and substance as labour legislation regulating working conditions in factories; that subject lay within legislative competence, and any overlap with inns and innkeepers was only incidental. The challenge to applicability and validity therefore failed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the preparation of meals, refreshments, coffee, and other eatables in the establishments amounted to a manufacturing process so that the premises answered the definition of a factory under the Factories Act, 1948; (ii) Whether the Factories Act, 1948, insofar as it applied to hotels and restaurants, was beyond the legislative competence of the Central Legislature.

Issue (i): Whether the preparation of meals, refreshments, coffee, and other eatables in the establishments amounted to a manufacturing process so that the premises answered the definition of a factory under the Factories Act, 1948.

Analysis: The definition of manufacturing process in Section 2(k) of the Factories Act, 1948 was treated as wide enough to include making, altering, or otherwise treating or adapting articles or substances for use, sale, transport, delivery, or disposal. The preparation of food and drink for customers was held to fall within that language. Once the statutory minimum of workers was also met, the premises satisfied the definition of factory under Section 2(m).

Conclusion: The establishments were factories within the meaning of the Factories Act, 1948, and the Act applied to them.

Issue (ii): Whether the Factories Act, 1948, insofar as it applied to hotels and restaurants, was beyond the legislative competence of the Central Legislature.

Analysis: The Act was characterised in pith and substance as legislation regulating labour in factories and securing proper working conditions. That subject fell within the Concurrent List under the Government of India Act, 1935, and any overlap with the topic of inns and innkeepers in the Provincial List was only incidental. On that basis, the Central Legislature had competence to enact the law and its application to establishments falling within the statutory definition could not be treated as ultra vires.

Conclusion: The Act was within legislative competence and validly applied to the establishments.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the applicability and validity of the Factories Act, 1948 failed, and the writ petition was dismissed with costs.

Ratio Decidendi: A statutory definition of manufacturing process wide enough to cover preparation of food for sale will bring such establishments within the definition of factory where the minimum number of workers is satisfied, and legislation whose pith and substance concerns labour regulation remains valid even if it incidentally overlaps a provincial subject.

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