The concept of 'sale' includes selling of services for a remuneration, and the expression 'shop' can be interpreted broadly to include establishments selling services.

( 1 ) THE respondent No. 1 in this appeal is an existing company within the meaning of the Companies Act, 1956 and claims to be carrying on business of promoting schemes for savings by small investors. The petitioner No. 2 claims to be a shareholder and also the Chairman and Managing Director of the Company.

( 2 ) ON January 20, 1983 the State Government issued a Notification in exercise of the powers conferred under Section 1 (5) of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948, hereinafter referred to in short as the "e. S. I. Act" extending the applicability of the said Act to 'shops' in the areas specified in the Schedule to the notification wherein twenty or more persons are employed or were employed for wages on any day of the preceding twelve months.

( 3 ) THE said Notification was challenged by the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 in this appeal by way of a writ petition which was allowed by the learned Single Judge by his judgment and order dated February 15, 1991 upon holding that the impugned Notification did not apply to the respondent No. 1 Company and the appellants were directed not to take any further steps pursuant to the said Notification as far as the respondent No. 1 Company was concerned.

( 4 ) THIS appeal is directed against the said judgment and order of the learned Single Judge.

( 5 ) IN order to appreciate the submissions made on behalf of the appellants it would be necessary to set out in brief the case made out in the writ petition.

( 6 ) IN December 1985, the respondent No. 1 Company, hereinafter referred to as the "company", received a letter dated November 1, 1985 from the Regional Director of the Employees' State Insurance Corporation, hereinafter referred to in short as the "e. S. I. Corporation", requiring the Company for the first time to make its contribution under the E. S. I Act from the month following in a Bank to be selected by the Company. The Company was also assigned a Code number for the said purpose.

( 7 ) ACCORDING to the writ petitioners/respondents the said letter had been wrongly sent to them since the Company did not come within the purview of the E. S. I Act. Various correspondence followed wherein the Company reiterated its stand that the E. S. I. Act was not applicable to it.

( 8 ) IT was the further case of the writ petitioners that since a "shop" is a place where activities connected with the buying and selling of goods are carried on, the Company's offices where no such trading activities involving buying and selling of goods or selling of services on a retail basis are carried on, could not be brought within the scope of the impugned Notification, nor could they be said to be "factories," as erroneously assumed by the E. S. I. authorities.

( 9 ) APPEARING for the appellants, Mr. S. C. Moitra submitted that the trading activities being carried on by the Company involved selling of services, and the learned Single Judge, therefore, error in holding that the said Notification was not applicable to it.

( 10 ) MR. Moitra urged that the business of the Company involved investing of the customers' money and sharing profits. Such sharing of profits amounted to retention by the Company of its charges for selling its services to the depositors and was in the nature of customer service and thus constituted commercial activity, which brought the Company within the scope of the impugned Notification.

( 11 ) IN support of his said submissions, Mr. Moitra firstly referred to the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Hindu Jea Band Jaipur v. The State of Rajasthan and Ors. reported in (1987-I-LLJ-502) wherein while interpretating the concept of "shop" the Supreme Court was of the view that it is not only a place where goods are sold which is a shop but it includes a place where services are sold on a retail basis, such as making available on payment services of musicians to play at social occasions.

( 12 ) IN this connection, MR. Moitra also referred to another decision o