MUNNANGI SUBBA RAO Vs. DIRECTOR GENERAL AERONAUTICAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY MINISTRY OF DEFENCE GOVT OF INDIA VIMANAPURA POST BANGALORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner in this Writ Petition is challenging the letter dated 31-1-1997 by which the offer of appointment as Assistant Director (Commercial) with the respondents (Aeronautical Development Agency) was cancelled.

(2.) This Writ Petition could have been summarily rejected on the ground that the revival of the offer of appointment in question was the relief in the nature of enforcement of right of personal service, which cannot be adjudicated upon in a Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. However, the question whether the respondent-Company (ADA) was an instrumentality of the State or not emerged for consideration of the Court during the course of arguments. Nowhere in the affidavit filed by the petitioner it is averred that the respondent-Company was an instrumentality of the State or was covered within the scope and meaning of the 'State'.

(3.) The learned Counsel for the petitioner in support of his contention that the respondent was included within the meaning of the word 'State', pressed into service the decision of the Supreme Court in Ajay Hasia v. KM Sehravardi, 1980 SLR 467 in which the Supreme Court held that the test was whether it was an instrumentality or agency of the Government and not as to how it was created. The inquiry had to be not as to how the juristic person was born but why it had been brought into existence. Whatever be its genetical origin, it would be an 'authority' within the meaning of Article 12 if it was an instrumentality or agency of the Government.