Medical Sales Representative Is Not 'Workman' Under Industrial Disputes Act: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has held that a medical sales representative, who has received specialized training for his field of work, cannot be categorised as a 'workman' under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.Section 2(s) of the Act defines 'workman' as any person employed in any industry to do any manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work.A medical sales representative's job is to meet doctors, inform them about all the new medicines and products launched by the medicare company they are attached to. Justice Tara Vitasta Ganju observed that only a qualified person having specialized knowledge about the medical products can recommend medicines to the doctors.“Thus, it can clearly be seen that the Petitioner was not a person doing clerical or menial jobs but was a qualified graduate with a specialization and had also received specialized training for his field of work. There thus can be no doubt that the work that was being done by the Petitioner was of a specialized skill which he received after training that was imparted by the Respondent Company,” the bench observed.The Court was dealing with a plea filed by a sales executive working M/S Win Medicare Pvt. Ltd.Petitioner was aggrieved by dismissal of his claim by the Labour Court with a finding that he is a medical sales representative and cannot be categorized as a workman in view of the Supreme Court judgment in H.R. Adyanthaya & Ors. v. Sandoz (India) Ltd. & Ors. (1994).The case discusses Section 2(s) of the ID Act and Section 6(2) of the Sales Promotion Employees Act to conclude that medical representatives are not non-skilled workers but are technical or operational workers and thus cannot be defined as a 'workman'.Agreeing, the High Court said that a medical sales representative is engaged in canvassing for promotion of sales.In H.R. Adyanthaya (supra), the Top Court had categorically held that definition of 'skilled' worker will not include the work of a sales promotion employee because the said word has to be construed ejusdem generis— i.e., skilled work whether manual or non-manual, which is of a genre of the other types of work mentioned in the definition. “The work of promotion of sales of the product or services of the establishment is distinct from and independent of the types of work covered by the said definition,” the Top Court had said.As such, the High Court upheld the labor court's order.Appearance: Mr. Gautam Kumar Laha, Adv. with Petitioner in person; Mr. Jitesh Pandey, Mr. Hrishabh Tiwari, Ms. Pooja Sood, Mr. Aniket Singh & Mr. Naman Arora, Advs. for RespondentCase title: Sh. Samarendra Das v. M/S Win Medicare Pvt. Ltd.Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1358Case no.: W.P.(C) 7484/2019Click here to read order

Medical Sales Representative Is Not 'Workman' Under Industrial Disputes Act: Delhi High Court

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