The meaning of the word 'industry' does not pose any particular difficulty to ordinary people. However, judges of the Supreme Court have been struggling to interpret the term found in the Industrial Disputes Act for nearly four decades, and the final word has not been spoken yet. Last week, a seven-judge Constitution bench referred the question to a nine-judge bench in the case, State of Uttar Pradesh versus Jaibir Singh. The issue came to the fore in the 1978 judgment in the Bangalore Water Supply case when the employees' rights under the Act were denied by the state. The latter maintained that the water supply board was not an industry, as it was not making a profit. Voluntary organizations and trusts also raised the same bar against their employees' demands. A seven-judge bench delivered a split verdict. The later generation of judges has doubted the ruling, and therefore, the new seven-judge bench referred the question to a nine-judge Constitution bench. It is a mark of the times that after the issue was referred to the Constitution bench in 2005, it took over a decade to pass on the 38-year-old question to the nine-judge bench.