Employees connected with newspaper printing and administration are covered under ESI law even without a separate notification.

Employees engaged in the administrative and editorial sections of a newspaper printing press fall within the statutory definition of "employee" under the Employees' State Insurance Act because they are employed for wages in work connected with the factory's operation, administration, and publication process. The definition is not limited to factory-floor workers, and editorial tasks essential to preparing material for print, as well as administrative functions managing the press, are covered. A later notification under section 1(5) was not required where the existing definition already applied, so contribution liability extended to those staff and the demand was valid.

---

---

Issues: Whether employees in the administrative and editorial sections of a newspaper printing press are "employees" under section 2(9) of the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, so as to attract liability for contribution even before an express notification under section 1(5) extends the Act to those sections.

Analysis: The statutory definition of "employee" is not confined to persons working on the factory floor. It includes persons employed for wages in or in connection with the work of a factory, including work incidental to or connected with the factory, and persons employed on work connected with administration. The printing and publishing of a newspaper could not be carried on without the editorial staff preparing, selecting and finalising material for print, and without the administrative staff managing the affairs of the press. Such personnel were therefore employed in connection with the work of the factory itself. The later notification under section 1(5) was not decisive where the statutory definition already covered the employees concerned.

Conclusion: The administrative and editorial staff of the printing presses were employees within section 2(9) of the Act, and the contribution demand was valid against the appellants.

Final Conclusion: The liability under the Act extended to the administrative and editorial staff of the newspaper presses, and the appeals failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Persons employed for wages in work connected with the operation, administration, or publication process of a factory are covered by section 2(9) of the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, even if they do not work on the factory floor and even if no separate notification under section 1(5) has yet been issued for that section of the establishment.

---