Case: Cricket Club Of India Ltd Vs. The Bombay Labour Union &amp; Another

2. The Club is admittedly a Members Club and is not a proprietary Club, though it is incorporated as a Company under the Indian Companies Act. At the relevant time, the Club had a membership of about 4800 and was employing 397 employees who claimed to be workmen. The principal objects of the Club are to encourage and promote various sports, particularly the game of cricket in India and elsewhere, to lay out grounds for the game of cricket, and also to finance and assist in financing cricket matches and tournaments. In addition, it provides a venue for sports and games as well as facilities for recreation and entertainment for the Members. It maintains Tennis Courts in pursuance of another outdoor activity. The indoor games for which provision is made include Billards, Table Tennis, Badminton and Squash. It also maintains a swimming pool. The Club has also provision for residence of members, for which purpose it has constructed 48 residential flats and 40 residential rooms some of which are air-conditioned. Persons occupying these residential flats and rooms are charged at different rates according to the accommodation provided. There is also a Catering Department which provides food and refreshments for the members coming to the Club as well as those residing in the residential portion, and it also makes arrangements or dinners and parties on special occasions at the request of Members. The affairs of the Club are managed by an Executive Committee and various honorary office-bearers.3. As is usual in most Clubs, the membership is varied. There are life members, ordinary members, temporary members, service members and honorary members. Guests both local and from outstation, are admitted, but subject to certain restrictions and only when they are introduced by a member. The Club owns immovable properties of the value of about Rs. 67 lakhs from which an income in the range of about Rs. 4 lakhs a year accrues to the Club. The other regular source of income is the Club sub-scription paid by each member. Entrance paid by the members is treated as a contribution to the capital of the Club. There are regular games for members of the Club ; but apart from those games, in the cricket ground, which has a Stadium attached to it, matches and various tournaments are held, including Test Matches between the Indian teams and foreign teams visiting India. On these occasions, public are admitted to watch the matches on tickets sold by the Club. In addition, it appears that four sports organisations, amongst which mention may be made particularly of the Catholic Gymkhana Ltd., have been given the right, under agreements entered into with the Club, to exclusive use of a number of seats in the stadium whenever there are official and/or unofficial test matches and/or matches of similar status sponsored by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, or when a fixture is played by a foreign team on the Club grounds though not sponsored by the Board. Under these agreements, these organisations make payment to the Club for the members seats reserved at prescribed rates and they are at liberty to charge whatever they like from their own members who are admitted to those seats, with the further facility that they can make their own provision for catering and supply of refreshments to their members over part of the land made available to them by the Club. On the occasion of annual Badminton and Table Tennis open tournaments, a stall is run by the Club where both competitors and spectators are allowed to buy snacks and soft drinks at concessional rates. In the Catering Department alone, the turnover of the Club is in the region of Rs. 10 lakhs a year. The Tribunal, after considering these facts and the various decisions which were available to it when it gave its award, has come to the conclusion that the Club is an industry, so that this reference under the Act is competent. The Club, which has come up in appeal, contends that the decision of the Tribunal is not correct and that, on the ratio of the decision of this Court in The Secretary, Madras Gymkhana Club Employees Union v. The Management of the Gymkhana Club, AIR 1968 SC 554   this Court should hold that the Club is not an industry.

Court's reasoning:
7. The first point urged before us was that an examination of the objects of the Club would show that it is not purely a social or recreational Club confining its activities to Members like the Madras Gymkhana Club. Our attention was drawn to objects of the Club as given in paragraph 8, Clauses (a), (c), (d), (g), (1) and (na) of the Memorandum of Association of the Club. It was argued that the activity of encouraging and promoting the game of cricket in India and elsewhere mentioned in Clause (a), financing and assisting in financing visits of foreign teams and of visits of Indian teams to foreign countries in Clause (c), organising and promoting or assisting in the organisation or promotion of Provincial Cricket Associations and Inter-Provincial Tournaments in Clause (d), buying, repairing, making, supplying, selling and dealing in all kinds of apparatus and appliances and all kinds of provisions, liquid and solid, required by persons frequenting the Club buildings or the cricket grounds or other premises of the Club in Clause (g) and paying all or any part of the expenses of any cricket match, tour or tournament, or any other sporting events or match or competition in any other form of game, athletics, or sports and any kind of entertainment, exhibition or display in Clause (1) are not activities which should form part of a social and recreational Club. The argument ignores the fact that the Club is not only a social and recreational Club but is a Club of Members organised with one of the primary objects encouraging and promoting sports and games. The activity of promotion of sports and games by a set of people combining together to form a Club cannot be said to be an undertaking in the nature of a trade or business in which material goods or material services are provided with the aid of the employees. In Clause (na), the object mentioned is to construct on any premises of the Club buildings of any kind for residential, commercial, sporting or other uses and to repair, or alter or pull down, or demolish the same. In this clause, emphasis was laid on the word "commercial" and it was urged that if buildings are constructed for commercial purposes, this object will make the Club an industry. We do not consider it necessary to deal with this point at this stage, because the very next point relating to investment of large sums of money in immovable properties indicates how this object is being carried out in practice and, when dealing with this point, we shall indicate that this activity is not of such a nature as to make the Club anfrom all these, there are a certain number of buildings just outside the Stadium which are let out for use as shops and offices by business concerns. The income that the Club earns is primarily from these last-mentioned constructions.It was urged that the Club in thus constructing building for the purpose of earning income from rents payable by business concerns, to whom those premises are let out, is carrying on an activity which is in the nature of trade or business and, consequently, it should be held that the Club is an industry.So far as the residential buildings are concerned, where it appears that some employees must be contributing their labour, the principal consideration for holding that it does not amount to an activity of the nature of an industry is that this residential accommodation is provided exclusively for the Members of the Club. It has been stated that it is meant primarily for outstation Members of the Club who occupy this residential accommodation when they visit Bombay. In addition, it seems that there are 11 Members of the Club who are residing more or less permanently in 11 of these residential rooms. It is also true that members occupying the residential accommodation are required to take advantage of the catering facilities provided by the Club. They are charged consolidated amounts for, occupation of the rooms as well as for the food served to them. The Tribunal has held that this activity is in the nature of keeping a Hotel. The view taken by the Tribunal is clearly incorrect, because it ignores the circumstance that this facility is available only to Members of the Club and to no outsider. It is in the nature of a self-service by the Club organised for its Members.The rules which have been brought to our notice make it clear that, apart from Members, no one is allowed to stay in these residential rooms and that, in exceptional cases where some important visitors come to the Club or competitors taking part in tournaments visit this place, they are permitted to stay in these residential rooms, but, in such cases, they are all made Honorary Members of the Club.The facility is thus availed of by them in the capacity of Members of the Club, even thought that membership is honorary. The principle of having honorary members is quite common to most Clubs and existed even in the Madras Gymkhana Club. Once a person becomes an honorary member, provision of facilities of the Club for him partakes of the same nature as for other members and, consequently, such an activity by the Club continues to remain a part of it as a self-serving institution. It is quite wrong to equate it with the activity of a Hotel. It may also be mentioned that there is definite evidence given on behalf of the Club that the charges for the residential accommodation with catering are much lower in the Club than the charges made for similar facility in any decent Hotel in Bombay where comparable accommodation may be provided. This further clarifies the position that this is a facility provided by the Club at concessional rates exclusively for its Members.10. We may at this stage also deal with the argument advanced on behalf of the Union in respect of the nature of catering activities of the Club. So far as the catering in the Refreshment Room maintained by the Club and for persons occupying the residential accommodation is concerned, it is confined to Members of the Club only. No outsider is allowed to take advantage of this facility. In fact, the bye-laws of the Club clearly lay down that, even if a guest is introduced by a Member, the guest is not entitled to pay for any refreshment served to him. The transaction continues to be confined to the Member of the Club who introduces the guest.The Club is of course, not open to public in general and, even when non- members are admitted in the Club, they are only allowed as guest of members with the certain restrictions. Such guests cannot enter into any transaction with the Catering Department of the Club. Consequently, this catering activity is also in the nature of a self-service by the Club for itsis true that, in carrying on this object of the Club, the Club has been charging the spectators by selling tickets to them and also charging organisations to whom seats are specially allotted. So far as seats allotted to those organisations are concerned, we are inclined to accept the argument advanced by Mr. Vimadalal that this arrangement, instead of enuring to the benefit of the Club, in fact is to its disadvantage. We have already indicated that at least in one case of the Catholic Gymkhana Ltd., the charge that is made from the Gymkhana is at a very low rate of Rs. 5/- or Rs. 4/- per seat. On the face of it, if the Club was intending to make profits, it need not have given those seats to the Gymkhana and could have sold the seats to outsiders at much higher rates. The very fact that such agreements have been entered into,with organisations connected with the game of cricket shows that, in entering into these agreements, the primary object of the Club was to encourage persons who are interested in the game of cricket, even though at the disadvantage of charging them at much lower rates. So far as charges from spectators are concerned by selling tickets to them, they are obviously realised in order to ensure that the Club can carry on its activity of the promotion of game of cricket and also make up losses for purposes of providing other facilities and amenities to the Members of the Club. It its to be noticed that, in the whole period of 37 years, only 13 Test Matches have been held on the grounds of the Club. Even these Matches are not organised by the Club itself. They are, in fact, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The Board then arranges with the Bombay Cricket Association, which is the controlling body, for the venue of the Test Match. The Bombay Cricket Association has no ground or Stadium of its own. It is the Bombay Cricket Association that approaches the Club to promote the Test Matches to be played at the Brabourne Stadium of the Club, and the Club accedes to these requests. It will thus be seen that the Club comes in at the last stage of providing the venue and making arrangements for the successful holding of the Test Matches and it is for that purpose, on the few occasions when Test Matches are allotted to the grounds of the Club, that the Club is able to sell tickets in the Stadium and make some income. In these circumstances, we are not inclined to accept the submission made on behalf of the workmen that this activity by the Club is an undertaking in the nature of trade or business.It is, in fact, an activity in the course of promotion of the game of cricket and it is incidental that the Club is able to make an income on these few occasions which income is later utilised for the purpose of fulfilling its other objects as incorporated in the Memorandum of Association. The holding of the Test Matches is primarily organised by the Club for the purpose of promoting the game of cricket. This activity by Club cannot, by itself, in our opinion, lead to the inference that the Club is carrying on anis true that, for purposes of contract law and for purposes of suing or being sued, the fact of incorporation makes the Club a separate legal entity; but, in deciding whether the Club is an industry or not, we cannot base our decision on such legal technicalities. What we have to see is the nature of the activity in fact and in substance. Though the Club is incorporated as a Company, it is not like an ordinary Company constituted for the purpose of carrying on business. There are no share-holders. No dividends are ever declared and no distribution of profits takes place. Admission to the Club is by payment of admission fee and not by purchase of shares. Even this admission is subject to balloting. The membership is not transferable like the right of shareholders. There is the provision for expulsion of a Member under certain circumstances which feature never exists in the case of a shareholder holding shares in a Limited Company. The membership is fluid. A person retains rights as long as he continues as a Member and gets nothing at all when he ceases to be a Member, even though be may have paid a large amount as admission fee. He even loses his rights on expulsion. In these circumstances, it is clear that the Club cannot be treated as a separate legal entity of the nature of a Limited Co. carrying on business. The Club, in fact, continues to be a Members Club without any shareholders and, consequently, all services provided in the Club for Members have to be treated as activities of a self serving institution.