Office of profit and election disqualification: valid regulations can bar a statutory corporation employee from contesting elections.
An employee of a statutory corporation with separate legal personality, its own fund, power to appoint and remove staff, and autonomy in daily administration is not treated as holding an office under the Government merely because the undertaking is nationalised and subject to broad policy supervision. The employee therefore did not attract disqualification under Article 191(1)(a). However, valid regulations made under parliamentary authority can themselves create a disqualification under Article 191(1)(e), and a rule prohibiting employees from contesting elections was treated as law for that purpose. The nomination rejection was ultimately sustained on that alternative constitutional ground.
Issues: (i) Whether an employee of the Life Insurance Corporation of India held an office of profit under the Government of India within Article 191(1)(a) of the Constitution. (ii) Whether a regulation made by the Life Insurance Corporation under the Act could disqualify its employees from contesting elections within Article 191(1)(e) of the Constitution.
Issue (i): Whether an employee of the Life Insurance Corporation of India held an office of profit under the Government of India within Article 191(1)(a) of the Constitution.
Analysis: The Corporation was a separate statutory body with perpetual succession, its own fund, power to appoint and remove its employees, and autonomy in day-to-day administration. Government control was confined to broad policy directions and certain supervisory powers. Those features showed that the Corporation was not a department of Government and its employees could not be treated as holding offices under the Government merely because the undertaking was nationalised and subject to governmental control in policy matters.
Conclusion: The employee did not hold an office of profit under the Government of India, and the nomination was not liable to rejection on that ground.
Issue (ii): Whether a regulation made by the Life Insurance Corporation under the Act could disqualify its employees from contesting elections within Article 191(1)(e) of the Constitution.
Analysis: A disqualification may arise not only from a statute itself but also from subordinate legislation validly made under statutory authority. Regulations made under section 49 had the force of law because they derived validity from the parliamentary enactment. A prohibition on an employee standing for election operated as a disqualification within the constitutional meaning of Article 191(1)(e).
Conclusion: The regulation constituted law made under Parliament and disqualified the employee from standing for election.
Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded, but the Court upheld the nomination rejection on the alternative ground that the regulatory prohibition under the Corporation's validly made regulations operated as a constitutional disqualification.
Ratio Decidendi: A statutory corporation with separate legal personality, financial autonomy, and only limited governmental policy control is not a Government department for Article 191(1)(a), but valid subordinate legislation made under parliamentary authority can disqualify a candidate under Article 191(1)(e).
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