'Industry' Definition Reference : Live Updates From Supreme Court 9-Judge Bench Hearing
LIVELAW NEWS NETWORK
17 March 2026 10:20 AM IST
A 9-judge bench of the Supreme Court will hear today the reference on the correctness of the definition of “industry” given by then Justice VR Krishna Iyer in the 1978 decision in Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board v. A. Rajappa.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justices BV Nagarathna, PS Narasimha, Dipankar Datta, Ujjal Bhuyan, Satish Chandra Sharma, Joymalya Bagchi, Alok Aradhe and Vipul M. Pancholi is hearing the matter.
In the Bangalore Water Supply case, a seven-judge bench had laid down a sweeping interpretation of the term “industry” under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The Court held that any systematic activity organised by cooperation between employer and employee for the production or distribution of goods and services could fall within the definition of industry, even if the organisation was not engaged in profit making.
The correctness of this decision was doubted in a 2002 appeal. The matter was ultimately referred to a 9-judge bench in 2017, since the Bangalore Water Supply case was rendered by a 9-judge bench.
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Live Updates
- 17 March 2026 2:20 PM IST
AG: impact of the 1982 act and the 2020 code, what kind of impact these two legislative instruments can have on bangalore water supply. so we have all the plethora which says that if a earlier law which is ambiguities and a lot of issues regarding interpretation, open to multiple reading and interpretations then a law on the same object, or even a cognant subject, which comes later , can throw considerable light on the reading and interpretation of an earlier law
- 17 March 2026 2:16 PM IST
certainity certain other facts besides triple test, due consideration must be given so that there is no board application. weightage must be given to the fact that analogues to trade and business- its very difficult, its a quagmire
2. on government undertaking several activities- simplicter application is open to quest
3. conventional understanding of sovereign in bangalore water supply need not necessary inform the court, modern constitutional state carry out welfare activities not limited to sovereign functions
- 17 March 2026 2:11 PM IST
AG: in terms of the issues mylords have framed, the issue one, my views are
1. triple test and dominant tests are in itself good test to determine whether activity can be categorised as industry. however, caution must be exercised as not everything that answered triple test ought to be industory
- 17 March 2026 1:08 PM IST
AG: on behalf of workers and working class, we may heard that bangalore water supply is a correct law. Then on behalf of state bodies, the submissions would be that the triple test is work and sovereign test would be read expansively. On behalf of charity, they don't fulfil triple test.
As far as Union is concerned, the tests are logically correct and it can't be said that there is inherent logicial fallacy but application of these tests are factors. I say there are overboard and there is indiscriminate application leading to over inclusion of activities.
- 17 March 2026 12:56 PM IST
J Datta: the court was informed the bill was in the field, the court had to clear the doubts in real time
AG: I am not saying anything on that but from Banerjee onwards the court was labouring had to find to give electable meaning to the anti-exploitative threat to the industrial dispute act
- 17 March 2026 12:44 PM IST
CJI: you need not to go into that
AG: the court was looking at worker oriented statute and it drew line somewhere that some activities may not be analogous to the trade and business and also functions which are constitutionally mandated public purpose activities which are drawn to different parts of constitution such as schedule VII allocation of legislative, executive functions
