New Delhi: A legal assistant in an industrial establishment does not come under the definition of `workman' under the Industrial Disputes Act, the Supreme Court held on Friday.

A Bench consisting of Justices A.R. Lakshmanan and Altamas Kabir rejected the contention that termination of service would amount to retrenchment within the purview of the Act and hence the legal assistant would be covered under it.

Writing the judgment, Justice Lakshmanan said a legal assistant's job was not stereotyped work. It involved creativity and he had to render not only legal opinion on a subject but also draft pleadings for the employer and represent him before various authorities.

The Bench said "an occupation is a principal activity (job, work or calling) that earns money (regular wage or salary) for a person and a profession is an occupation that requires extensive training and the study and mastery of specialised knowledge and usually has a professional association."

Besides medicine and law, ministry (in a government) could be called a profession. In all these professions, the members were required to swear on oath to uphold the ethics. "A member of a profession is termed a professional." A profession could also refer to any activity from which one earned one's living, so in that sense sport was a profession. "Therefore it is clear a professional can never be termed workman under any law," the Bench said.

In the instant case, Swayam Prakash Srivastava was appointed legal assistant in a National Textile Corporation mill but after a one-year probation his services were not regularised. He raised an industrial dispute and a labour court held that the termination of his services was illegal and ordered his reinstatement.

On appeal, the Allahabad High Court, while staying the order, directed payment of future salary. It finally confirmed the labour court's order. Allowing the NTC appeal against this judgment, the Bench said Srivastava had been receiving interim wages for over 15 years without working and without establishing his unemployment.

He was not entitled to raise an industrial dispute as he was governed only by the rules, regulations and terms and conditions of his employment.

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