TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1994 (7) TMI 312
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.... delay had occurred. The Regional Directors passed orders on different dates against the different appellants imposing damages, for the period in question. Being aggrieved by those orders the appellants filed petitions under Section 75 of the Act before the Employees' Insurance Court. The Employees' Insurance Court dismissed the petitions. Thereafter appeals were filed under Section 82 of the Act before the High Court which were dismissed in limine. 2. Before this Court, the validity of the impugned orders has been questioned on the ground that the power under Section 85-B could not have been exercised by the Regional Directors of the Corporation; it could have been exercised either by the Corporation or by the Director General of the said Corporation. 3. Section 3 of the Act provides for the establishment of the Employees' State Insurance Corporation and Section 4 provides for constitution of Standing Committee for the Corporation. Section 85-B vests power in the Corporation to recover from the employer such damages as it may think fit, whenever an employer fails to pay the amount due in respect of any contribution or any other amount payable under the said Act. Section 85-B....
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....ocess there has been a sub- delegation, because the Director General in his turn can authorise any other officer to exercise that power. Such other officer has neither been named nor has been described by designation in the resolution of the Corporation. 5. The courts are normally rigorous in requiring the power to be exercised by the persons or the bodies authorised by the statutes. It is essential that the delegated power should be exercised by the authority upon whom it is conferred and by no one else. At the same time, in the present administrative set-up extreme judicial aversion to delegation cannot be carried to an extreme. A public authority is at liberty to employ agents to exercise its powers. That is why in many statutes, delegation is authorised either expressly or impliedly. Due to the enormous rise in the nature of the activities to be handled by statutory authorities, the maxim delegatus non potest delegare is not being applied specially when there is question of exercise of administrative discretionary power. 6. By now it is almost settled that the legislature can permit any statutory authority to delegate its power to any other authority, of course, after the po....
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....ase of Harishankar Bagla v. State of M.P. AIR 1954 SC 465, 468 :(1955) 1 SCR 380: 1954 Cri LJ 1322, while examining the scope of Section 4 of the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act, 1946 it was said: "Section 4 of the Act was attacked on the ground that it empowers the Central Government to delegate its own power to make orders under Section 3 to any officer or authority subordinate to it or the Provincial Government or to any officer or authority subordinate to the Provincial Government as specified in the direction given by the Central Government. In other words, the delegate has been authorized to further delegate its power in respect of the exercise of the powers of Section 3. Mr Umrigar contended that it was for the Legislature itself to specify the particular authorities or officers who could exercise power under Section 3 and it was not open to the Legislature to empower the Central Government to say what officer or authority could exercise the power. Reference in this connection was made to two decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States of America Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan (1934) 293 US 388 :79 L Ed 446 and Schechter v. United States (1934) 295 US 49....
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.... Corporation, and there is no scope for such delegate to sub-delegate that power, by authorising any other officer to exercise or perform the power so delegated. 11. It may be mentioned that on 19-2-1983 the Corporation by another resolution in supersession of resolution dated 28-2-1976 has delegated its powers under Section 85-B to recover damages in the following terms: "Resolved that the power to levy and recover damages from the employer(s) under Section 85- B of the ESI Act, 1948, as amended up-to-date, may be exercised by the Director General, all Regional Directors, Joint Regional Directors, Deputy Regional Directors, Assistant Regional Directors, Director Sub-Regional Office, Pune and Deputy Regional Director In-charge Sub- Regional Office Nagpur." In this resolution the Corporation has delegated the power to recover damages under Section 85-B to the Director General, all Regional Directors, Joint Regional Directors, Deputy Regional Directors, Assistant Regional Directors and other officers mentioned in the resolution by designations. Neither any grievance has been made nor can it be made so far as this resolution is concerned because the Corporation has directly d....
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....er, the resolution could have been sustained on the principle indicated in the cases Harishankar Bagla v. State of M. p.7 and Barium Chemicals Ltd. v. Company Law Board'. As such it has to be held that the part of the resolution dated 28-2-1976, which authorises the Director General to permit any other officer to exercise the power under Section 85-B(1) of the Act is ultra vires Section 94-A. 14. It is an admitted position that the Regional Directors have exercised the power under Section 85-B(1) of the Act while passing the impugned orders for recovery of the damages from the appellants. The Regional Directors had been authorised to do so by the Director General of the Corporation by an office order dated 3-5-1976 made on the basis of the aforesaid resolution of the Corporation dated 28-2-1976. Once that part of the earlier resolution is held as invalid, the office order dated 3-5-1976 issued by the Director General also becomes invalid. The Regional Directors therefore could not have passed the impugned orders on the basis, of the invalid office order dated 3-5-1976. 15. Hence the view taken in the case of Rameshwar Jute Mills Ltd. v. Union of India AIR 1986 Pat 288: 198....