A person who is not personally aggrieved by an action cannot challenge it unless they have the authority to represent an aggrieved person.

( 1 ) THIS is an application by the General Secretary of the Eastern Zone Insurance Employees' Association against (1) the Zonal Manager, Eastern Zone Life Insurance Corporation of India with his office at Hindusthan Building, Calcutta, (2) the Divisional Manager, Hindusthan Co-Operative Insurance Society Ltd. and (3) the Chairman, Life Insurance Coporation of India, Bombay, for the issue of a writ in the nature of mandamus calling upon the respondents to cancel the basic pay actually drawn on August 31, 1956 by persons who were formerly employees of the Hindusthan Co-operative Insurance Society Limited and to give effect to their basic pay in accordance with law for the purpose For fitting in with the new scale adopted by the Life Insurance Corporation of India and for other reliefs. The petitioner has no personal interest in the matter and is seeking to get redress for the ex-employees of the Hindusthan Co-operative Insurance Society Limited.

( 2 ) (AFTER stating the facts and discussing the merits of the claim His Lordship proceeded:) On the merits, the claim of the ex-employees of the Hindusthan Co-operative Insurance Society Limited cannot be upheld. Apart from this, Mr. Chowdhury, learned counsel for the respondents, raised a number of technical objections in bar of the application and it appears to me that some of these are quite substantial. In the first affidavit in opposition filed on behalf of the respondents it was submitted that the petitioner was not entitled to maintain the application and that the Life Insurance Corporation of India was a necessary party. As no grounds for this were stated a further affidavit was allowed to be filed. By the subsequent affidavit in opposition the first of the above objections was amplified as follows :

( 3 ) IT was stated that the petition did not disclose whether the Eastern Zone Insurance Employee's Association was registered under the Trade Unions Act. If the Association was so registered the petition by the General Secretary was not maintainable. Alternatively, if the Association was not so registered the petition was still bad. It was stated further that the petitioner had no locus standi or authority to make the application as no legal right personal to the petitioner had been infringed,

( 4 ) IN answer to this a further affidavit in reply was affirmed by one Sunil Kumar Maitra, the General Secretary of the Calcutta Division Life Insurance Employees' Association. In this it is stated that (a) Before the passing of the Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956 there was a number of unions of the employees of the Hindusthan Cooperative Insurance Society Limited; on the passing of the said Act and consequent division of lite insurance work by Zones and other divisions the old unions were not in a position effectively to safeguard the interests of the employees of the Hindusthan Co-operative Insurance Society Limited. (b) To meet the situation the various old unions of employees of Life Insurance Companies in Calcutta met in a convention held in Calcutta on August 4 and 5, 1956 and resolved to form a trade union organisation of the Life Insurance Employees of all offices of the Life Insurance Corporation of India situated within the territory covered by the Calcutta division of the Corporation. (c) The newly formed Trade Union Organisation was named the Calcutta Division Life Insurance Employees' Association. (d) At an Extraordinary general meeting of the old Hindusthan Insurance Employees' Association Calcutta membership of the association was transferred to the Calcutta Division Life Insurance Employees' Association and members of the old association were enrolled as members of the newly formed Calcutta Division Life Insurance Employees' Association. (e) The said Calcutta Division Life Insurance Employees' Association was registered as a Trade Union on October 8, 1956 under the Indian Trade Unions Act, 1926 and the Association bore No. 3888 in the Trade Union Re