LIFE INSURANCE CORPORATION OF INDIA Vs. DISTRICT ELECTION OFFICER AND COMMISSIONER MUNICIPAL CORPORATION OF HYDRABAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) (the Corporation) is the petitioner. It impeaches the directions by respondent Nos.2 to 5 to issue of necessary instructions to the subordinate Officers/Heads of Offices of the LIC to spare the services of staff members for appointing them as Enumerators, Designated Officers and Booth Level Officers for the specified Assembly Constituencies, for revision of electoral rolls, as and when requisitioned by the concerned Electoral Registration Officers/Deputy Municipal Commissioners and Additional Commissioners. There being no response and timely response by the Corporation to the requisition/directives of respondent Nos.2 to 5, notices were issued on 4-12-2006 and thereafter, reiterating the directives, calling upon the Senior Divisional Manager of the petitioner- Corporation, Secunderabad, Divisional Office, Hyderabad to furnish a list of staff working under the addressee's control, within the stipulated time and intimating that failure to respond positively would attract the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (for short 'the 1951 Act').

(2.) Sri M. V. Suresh, the learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that the directives/requisitions issued by the respondents 3 to 5 are beyond their power, authority and jurisdiction either under the provisions of the Representation of People Act 1950 (the 1950 Act) or the Representation of People Act 1951 (the 1951 Act), and the respondents should therefore be restrained from threatening and coercing the Corporation to depute its staff.

(3.) On facts, it is contended that the petitioner is a commercial organization, in the public sector, having variegated and vast commercial obligations to fulfill and that its personnel who are critically trained in Life Insurance functions cannot be deployed except to its functional detriment. This factual circumstance is the basis for the petitioner's resistance to the call by respondents 2 to 5 to depute its officers for assisting in the preparation and revision of electoral rolls and other ancillary functions, as per the requisitions impugned in this writ petition.