CHARAN SINGH Vs. GOVT OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These six petitioners proceed on similar facts and raise similar questions of law; accordingly they are being decided by a single judgment.

(2.) In all these petitions the petitioners challenge the legality of the acquisition by the State Government of certain agricultural plots situate in the village Begambad in the Tahsil of Ghaziabad in the district of Meerut, of which they are the tenure holders. By the notification dated January 27, 1961, issued under Sub-section (1) of Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act the State Government notified for general information that those plots were needed for a public purpose, that is to say the construction of an "Employees State Insurance Corporation Hospital at Modinagar." The notification is coupled with an order under Sub-section (4) of Section 17 directing that the provisions of Section 5-A of the said act would not apply. This notification was followed by another notification of the State Government under Section 6 of the Act, dated February 1, 1962, notifying that the land mentioned in the notification under Section 4 was needed for the construction of a hospital at Modinagar by the Employees State Insurance Corporation, New Delhi.

(3.) The Employees State Insurance Corporation is a creature of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948. This Act is professedly designed to provide for certain benefits to employees in case of sickness, maternity and employment injury. Sub-section (1) of Section 3 creates the Employees State Insurance Corporation for the purpose of administering the scheme of Employees State Insurance in accordance with the provisions of the Act. Sub-section (2) of Section 3 provides that the Employees State Insurance Corporation shall be a body corporate having perpetual succession and a common seal and shall by the said name sue and be Sued. The Corporation would accordingly be a company as denned in the Land Acquisition Act. Under Section 4 the membership of the Corporation comprises of the Minister for labour in the Central Government (he is an ex-officio Chairman of the Corporation) the Minister for Health in the Central Government (he is an ex-officio Vice-Chairman of the Corporation), about five persons to be nominated by the Central Government, of whom at least three are officials of the Central Government, one person each representing each of the State in which the Act is in force to be nominated by the State Government concerned, one person to be nominated by the Central Govt. to represent the Union territories, five representatives of the employers, five representatives of the employees, two representatives of the medical profession, and two persons to be elected by Parliament. Sub-section (1) of Section 16 empowers the Central Government to appoint Chief officers of the Corporation. Section 19 provides that the Corporation may, in addition to the scheme of benefits specified in the Act, promote measures for the improvement of the health and welfare of insured persons and for the rehabilitation and reemployment of insured persons who have been disabled or injured. Sections 26, 27 and 39 reveal that the funds of the Corporation consist partly of the contributions made by the employers and the employees, partly of grants, donations and gifts, from the Central or the State Govt. local authority or any person as well as of a grant from the Central Government of a sum equivalent to two thirds of the administrative expenses of the Corporation not including therein the cost of any benefits provided by or under the Act. By Clause (iv) of Section 28 the Corporation is empowered to expend money from the fund for the establishment and maintenance of hospitals, dispensaries and other institutions and the provision of medical and other ancillary services for the benefit of insured persons, and, where the medical benefit is extended to their families, their families.