Definitions

(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,-

(a) "essential service" means,-

(i) all employment under the State Government (including all officers and servants of the State Legislature Secretariat and of the High Court);

(ii) any other employment or class of employment connected with matters with respect to winch the State Legislature has power to make laws, in respect of which the State Government is of opinion that strikes in such employment or class of employment would prejudicially affect the maintenance of any public utility service, the public safety or the maintenance of supplies or services essential to the life of the community or would result in the infliction of grave hardship on the community, and which the State Government declares, by notification in the Official Gazette, to be an essential service for the purposes of this Act;

(b) "strike" means the cessation of work by a body of persons employed in any essential service acting in combination or a concerted refusal or a refusal under a common understanding of any number of persons who are or have been so employed to continue to work or to accept employment, and includes—

(i) refusal to work overtime where such work is necessary for the maintenance of any essential service;

(ii) any other conduct which is likely to result in, or results in, cessation or substantial retardation of work in any essential service.

(2) Every notification issued under sub-clause (ii) of clause (a) of sub- section (1) shall be laid before the State Legislature immediately after it is made if it is in session, and on the first day of the commencement of the next session or" the Legislature if it is not in session, and shall cease to operate at the expiration of forty days from the date of its being so laid or from the re-assembly of the State Legislature, as the case may be, unless before the expiration of that period a resolution approving the issue of the notification is passed by the State Legislature.