India, March 20 -- A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday reserved judgment in a batch of petitions that will determine whether a 1978 judgment was right in expanding the social welfare net under the now-repealed Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 to workers in government departments, universities, and hospitals.

With several states, Centre and public entities opposing the 48-year-old judgment for giving a wide meaning to the term 'industry' under the Act, Attorney General R Venkataramani representing Centre said, "The government is certainly not anti-labour and we need not close our eyes to this fact in the present situation of liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation (coined by the bench as LPG)."

Assuring that the gov...