Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J. :- Three seminal issues arise in this little lis harbouring larger principles. We may state them, each with a quote to drive home the social stakes, and then proceed to the pedestrian factual-legal narrative and discussion.

They (corporations) cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls".

(Edward Coke, Suttons Hospital Case)

2. A legal power, which projects an awesome portent has been sprung upon the court by the defending respondent - The Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited Vide Certificate of Incorporation dated 1-8-1977 (the Corporation, for short - as to whether a writ will issue under Article 32 of the Constitution against a government company, belonging, as it does, to an increasing tribe of soulless ubiquity and claiming, as it does, to constitutional immunity. This is the first issue to which we will address ourselves.

3. Jawaharlal Nehru warned the Constituent Assembly about the problem of poverty and social change :

The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our gener