(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,--
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         ²[(b) "essential service" means--
             (i) any transport services for the carriage of passengers or goods, by land or water with respect to which the Legislative Assembly of the State of Assam has power to make laws;
             (ii) any service connected with the production, storage, supply or distribution, as the case may be, of gas or water;
             (iii) any service connected with the maintenance of public health and sanitation, including hospitals and dispensaries;
             (iv) any public services and posts in connection with the affairs of the State, and also persons appointed to the secretarial staff of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Assam;
             (v) any other service or employment or class thereof, connected with matters with respect to which the Legislative Assembly of the State of Assam has power to make laws and which the State Government, being of opinion that strikes therein would prejudicially affect the maintenance of any public utility service, the public safety or the maintenance of the supplies and services necessary for the life of the community or would result in the infliction of grave hardship on the community, may, by notification in the official gazette, declare to be an essential service for the purpose of this Act;
         (bb) 'State Government' means the State Government of Assam;]
             (c) "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 who 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 ill, cessation or substantial retardation of work in any essential service.
     (2) Every notification issued ³[under sub-clause (v)] of clause (6) of sub-section (1) shall be laid before each House of Parliament immediately after it is made if it is in session and on the first day of the commencement of the next session of the House 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 Parliament, as the case may be, unless before the expiration of that period a resolution approving the issue of the notification is passed by both Houses of Parliament.
     Explanation.-- Where the Houses of Parliament are summoned to re- assemble on different dates, the period of forty days shall be reckoned from the later of those dates.
     (3) Any reference in this Act to any law which is not in force in any area of the State of Assam and to any authority under such law shall, in relation to that area, be construed as a reference to the corresponding law in force in that area and to the corresponding authority under such corresponding law.