( 1 ) THREE questions of importance, touching the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, and the inter-relation of some of its sections and its three Chapters IV, V and V-A and their relative mutual impact on one another, arise for consideration in this appeal and they embrace, in particular, determination of the meaning and scope of the two terms "employee' and 'factory' and the effect thereof and of the exemption, granted by the State Government under Sections 87 and 88 of the Act, on the employer's liability for special contribution under the aforesaid Chapter V-A. For proper appreciation of the questions raised and facilitating due determination of the same, it is necessary to state the facts which led up to the present proceeding. Those facts lie within a short compass and they stand as follows: the appellant, the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation Ltd. , is a business concern, carrying on the business of generating and supplying electrical energy for use, inter alia, in Calcutta and its suburbs and, for that purpose, it has three power houses or Generating Stations and 23 sub-stations in Calcutta and Howrah and certain ancillary establishments. The above