TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1967 (4) TMI 195
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....g all these respondents, were provisionally placed at the disposal of the Board by a notification issued by the Government on 12th February, 1958, purporting to exercise its powers under section 78A of Act 54 of 1948. In this notification a direction was included that the Board was to frame its own new grades and service conditions under its regulations, and the employees, whose services were transferred to the Board, were to exercise option either to accept these new grades and service conditions, or to continue ill their existing grades and service conditions, except in regard to conduct and disciplinary rules, or to obtain relief from Government service by claiming pension or gratuity as might be admissible on abolition of posts under the Rajasthan Service Rules. The Board, however, did not frame any new grades and service conditions at least up to the time that the present litigation arose. Respondent No. 1 was, however, deputed by the State Government by its order dated 27th January, 1960, after having worked under the Board for a period of about two years, to the Public Works Department of the Government. On 10th August, 1960, an order was made by the Government addressed to ....
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....No. 1. The Board has now come up in appeal to 'this Court, by special leave, against this order of the High Court. Apart from the Board, the State of Rajasthan, and the Chief Engineer & Technical Member of the Rajasthan State Electricity Board, Jaipur, were also impleaded as opposite parties in the writ petition; and they are respondents 2 and 3 in this appeal. On the first question, Mr. S. T. Desai on behalf of the appellant drew our attention to the notification dated 12th February, 1958, in which it was specifically laid down that the services of respondent No. 1 and respondents 4 to 14 were being placed at the disposal of the Board 'provisionally'. He has taken us through the various pleadings in the petition filed by respondent No. 1 to show that the case put forward by respondent No. 1 before the High Court was that he never became a permanent servant of the Board and was claiming that, after the winding up of the Electrical and Mechanical Department of the Government, he was temporarily with the Board and, later, became a permanent servant of the State in the Public Works Department. The High Courtion the other hand, held that the pleadings of respondent No. 1 were obscur....
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.... Board. On this view of the High Court, the order of the Government dated 27th January, 1960, would indicate that the lien of respondent No. 1 was on a post under the Board. Further, when respondent No. 1 was relieved from the post of Assistant Engineer in the Public Works Department, the order which the Government passed specifically mentioned that he was taken on deputation from the Board, and directed his reversion to his parent department. In the order of reversion, respondent No. 1 was thus treated as an employee of the Board which was described,as his parent department and from which he had been taken on deputation in the Public Works Department. Even the Board itself, in its order dated 11th July, 1963, proceeded on the basis that respondent No. 1 had reverted from the Public Works Department and made a direction that, on reversion from that Department, he was posted as Foreman 1, Chambal Grid Sub-Station, Udaipur, against a newly sanctioned post. Thus, the Board accepted the positon that respondent No. 1 was a servant of the Board and not an employee of the State Government in the Public Works Department. The word "reversion" used in the order clearly implied that, even acc....
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....med, cannot cover the Board which is a body corporate having a separate existence and has been constituted primarily for the purpose of carrying on commerical activities. In support of his proposition that the expression "other authorities" should be interpreted ejusdem generis, he relied on a decision of the Madras High Court in The University of Madras v. Shantha Bai and Another(A.1,R. 1954 Mad.67). The High Court, considering the question whether a University can be held to be local or other authority as defined in Art. 12, held: "These words must be construed 'ejusdem generis' with Government or Legislature, and, so construed, can only mean authorities exercising governmental functions. They would not include persons natural or juristic who cannot be regarded as instrumentalities of the Government. The University of Madras is a body corporate created by Madras Act VII of 1923. It is not charged with the execution of any governmental functions; its purpose is purely to promote education. Though section 44 of the Act provides for financial contribution by the local Government, the University is authorised to raise its own funds of income from fees, endowments and the like. It is ....
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....basic principle of interpretation that, to invoke the application of ejusdem generis rule, there must be a distinct genus or -category running through the bodies already named. Craies on ,Statute Law summarises the principle as follows :- "The ejusdem generis rule is one to be applied with caution and not pushed too far.... To invoke the, application of the ejusdem generis rule there must be a distinct genus or category. The specific words must apply not to different objects of a widely differing character but to something which can be called a class or kind of objects. Where this is lacking, the rule cannot apply, but the mention of a single species does not con- stitute a genus(Craies on Statute Law, 6th Edn., p. 181)." Maxwell in his book on 'Interpretation of Statutes' explained the principle by saying : "But the general word which follows particular and specific words of the same nature as itself takes its meaning from them, and is presumed to be restricted to the same genus as those words .... Unless there is a genus or category, there is no room for the application of the ejusdem generis doctrine (Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes, 11th Edn. pp. 326, 327)." In United ....
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....hority set up under a statute for the purpose of administering laws enacted by the Parliament or by the State including those vested with the duty to make decisions in order to implement those laws." In K. S. Ramamurthi Reddiar v. The Chief Commissioner, Pondicherry and Another([1964] I S.C.R. 656), this Court, dealing with Art. 12, held : "Further, all local or other authorities within the territory of India include all authorities within the territory of India whether under the control of the Government of India or the Governments of various States and even autonomous authorities which may not be under the control of the Government at all." These decisions of the Court support our view that the expression "other authorities" in Art. 12 will include all constitutional or statutory authorities on whom powers are conferred by law. It is not at all material that some of the powers conferred may be for the purpose of carrying on commercial activities. Under the Constitution, the State is itself envisaged as having the right to carry on trade or business as mentioned in Art. 19(1)(g). In Part IV, the State has been given the same meaning as in Art. 12 and one of the Directive Principle....
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....ff; to issue directions for securing the maximum economy and efficiency in the operation of electricity undertakings, to make rules and regulations for carrying out the purposes of the Act; and to issue directions under certain provisions of the Act and to enforce compliance with those directions. The Board is also invested by statute with extensive powers of control over electricity undertakings. The power to make rules and regulations and to administer the Act is in substance the sovereign power of the State delegated to the Board. The Board is, in my judgment, "other authority" within the meaning of Art. 12 of the Constitution. I am unable, however, to agree that every constitutional or statutory authority on whom powers are conferred by law is "other authority" within the meaning of Art. 12. The expression "authority" in its etymological sense means a body invested with power to command or give an ultimate decision, or enforce obedience, or having a legal right to command and be obeyed.' The expression "State" is defined in Art. 12 for the purpose of Part III of the Constitution. Article 13 prohibits the State from making any legislative or executive direction which takes....