SC upholds broad definition of industry, only for pending cases

SC retains broad definition of ‘industry’NEW DELHI: A nine-judge Supreme Court bench on Thursday settled a decades-old debate over the appropriateness of its 1978 ruling giving an expansive definition to "industry" to protect workmen against arbitrary retrenchment, and said it would apply to all organisations, including govt public works agencies, temples, hospitals and NGOs, if there existed an employee-employer relationship under Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.A 9-judge bench of CJI Surya Kant, and Justices B V Nagarathna, P S Narasimha, D Datta, U Bhuyan, S C Sharma, J Bagchi, A Aradhe and V M Pancholi unanimously said that given the socio-economic condition of yester decades, the triple test laid down by a 7-judge bench in Bangalore Water Supply case - systematic activity, functional re