The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has strongly criticised a recent Supreme Court judgment on the definition of “industry”, alleging that the ruling could further weaken legal protections available to India’s working class and strengthen the exclusions introduced under the Industrial Relations Code, 2020.

In a press release issued on August 21, CITU said the nine-member Constitution Bench had delivered a “5:4, a water thin majority judgement” while adjudicating on the applicability of the definition evolved by a seven-judge Bench in the landmark 1978 Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board v. R. Rajappa case.

The earlier judgment, delivered by a Bench led by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, had laid down the widely known “triple test” for determining whether an organisation qualified as an industry.

Under this test, an organisation engaged in systematic activity, involving an employer-employee relationship and the production or distribution of goods or services to satisfy human wants, could fall within the definition of an “industry”, irrespective of whether it had a profit motive.

According to CITU, this interpretation had stood for decades and “has become the law of land”, though it continued to be challenged by employers.

The issue was revisited by the nine-member Constitution Bench in the context of the State of Uttar Pradesh v. Jai Bir Singh, with the judgment delivered on August 20, 2026.

CITU noted that the Supreme Court had allowed matters already pending before courts, tribunals, labour authorities and other forums under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 to be decided according to the triple test laid down in the Bangalore Water Supply case.

However, the trade union body objected to the court’s decision not to examine the definition of “industry” under the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, in the light of the earlier ruling.

According to the release, the court concluded that “it is apposite (means relevant) to note that the ratio in Bangalore Water Supply (supra) limited itself till a new definition was introduced. As a new law redefining “industry” has come into force, the ratio in Bangalore Water Supply (supra) would remain restricted to the proceedings pending under the repealed law and the provisions of the new law, i.e. IR Code shall be independently interpreted”.

CITU alleged that by leaving the new definition under the Industrial Relations Code to be interpreted independently, the judgment had effectively weakened the protection provided by the expansive interpretation laid down in the 1978 verdict.

“It is nothing but dancing to the tune of neo-liberal eco-system that is mercilessly depriving the hard-earned rights of workers,” the organisation said.

The trade union body further argued that the process of labour law codification, particularly the Industrial Relations Code, had already excluded millions of workers from legal protections by raising threshold limits for the applicability of labour laws.

“The entire process of Labour Law Codification in general and the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 in particular has already excluded millions of our working people from the coverage through the increasing the threshold limits for application of law,” CITU said, adding that such workers had effectively been kept “out of legal entitlement and protection”.

Criticising the latest judgment, CITU said the Supreme Court had gone further by refraining from extending the application of the Bangalore Water Supply ruling to the Industrial Relations Code.

The organisation alleged that the decision had “not only lend the credence to this cruel exclusion” but had also “facilitated the interest of corporate by excluding its own citizen- that too working population from protection of law”.

CITU said both Parliament and the judiciary had failed to adequately protect workers’ rights guaranteed under the Constitution and called upon workers across the country to intensify their struggle against the four labour codes.