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21. Thereafter the Court observed:

"The example (e) given above, very appropriately applies to the case of a person employed to do technical work. His work depends upon special mental training or scientific or technical knowledge. If the man is employed because he possesses such faculties and enable him to produce something as a creation of his own, he will have to be held to be employed on technical work, even though, in carrying out that work, he may have to go through a lot of manual labour. If, on the other hand, he is merely employed in supervising the work of others, the fact that, for the purpose of proper supervision, he is required to have technical knowledge will not convert his supervisory work into technical work. The work of giving advice and guidance cannot be held to be an employment to do technical work."

27. In the case of Metropolitan Borough of Batteries v. British Iron & Steel Research Association 1949 (1) K.B. 434, the question as to what was "technical work" was dealt with by the Court of appeals. Though the consideration of the said term was in the context of deciding as to whether the respondent association could be said to be an association instituted for the purposes of science, the Court of appeal had occasion to deal with the term "technical work" appearing in the memorandum of the respondent-association, JENKINS, J. in his Judgment while dealing with the term "technical work" observed as under:

"Technical work" is, I think, a phrase of substantially wider import than "scientific work". No doubt all scientific work may be said to be "technical" but the converse by no means necessarily applies."

We have referred to the dictionary-meaning as there is no definition of the word "technical" or "technical work" to be found in the Industrial Disputes Act. In the case of Bombay Dyeing & Mfg. Co. Ltd. v. R.A Bidoo 1990-I- LLJ-98 (Bom) a Division Bench of this Court, while expounding on the words "technical" and "technical work" observed as follows at p. 103:

Mr. Deshmukh submitted that the plain dictionary meaning as well as the meaning given to the term on authority points to the fact that the term "technical" cannot be restricted to the field of technology and science and could include work in the fields of art and professions. In determining whether the work is "technical" the question as to whether the work could involve application of any technique would be relevant. Mr. Deshmukh further submitted that a Law Officer, who has to formulate opinion in order to give legal advice would have to apply specialised knowledge. The formulation of opinion would also include the use of techniques for the interpretation of the law. Insofar as Gauhati High Court's Judgment is concerned, he submitted that the same is based on an: inaccurate interpretation of the Judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Burmah Shell Oil Storage & Distributing Co. Ltd. (supra). That case does not lay down that the work of giving advice and guidance ipso facto eliminates the employment to be one where the employee is doing technical work. The real ratio in the Burmah Shell case was even if the person had technical knowledge but was doing mainly supervisory work, then he could not be said to be doing technical work within the meaning of Section 2(s). In fact, it was vehemently argued on behalf of the appellant that Gauhati High Court has misinterpreted the ratio of the Judgment of the Apex Court in Burmah Shell case.