Nine Judges, One Word: The Supreme Court Redraws the Line on What Counts as "Industry'
What Happened A nine judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, delivered its judgment on 20 August 2026 in State of Uttar Pradesh versus Jai Bir Singh, reconsidering one of the most consequential and long debated definitions in Indian labour law, the meaning of "industry" under Section 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The bench had reserved judgment on 19 March 2026 after hearing arguments on whether to uphold or overturn the expansive interpretation laid down nearly five decades earlier in Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board versus R. Rajappa, a 1978 ruling authored by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer that established what became known as the Triple Test, under which almost any organised activity involving employer-employee cooperation for producing goods or services qualified as an industry, regardless of profit motive, with only a narrow exception carved out for sovereign government functions. The outcome defied a clean res...