The court emphasized a liberal interpretation of the notifications to achieve the object of providing social security to employees, highlighting the importance of considering the nature of the legislation and the purpose sought to be achieved.

1. The Employees' Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act (for. short 'the Act') is a beneficent piece of social welfare legislation intended for the social security of the employees. The Act and Scheme are aimed at being extended to as much employees as possible. That is why S.1 (3)(b) authorised the Central Government to extend the provisions by notification in the Gazette to establishments, the only condition being that the concern should be an establishment and it should employ 20 or more persons. Size of the concern reflected by the number of employees and not the nature of the business transacted there is the criterion. The right to issue notifications bringing more and more establishments within its ambit is there and it will continue so long as the Act is in force. In exercise of the powers the Central Government issued several notifications of which we are concerned only with two. They are the notification of 1964 by which establishment of "Medical Practitioners and Specialists" and the notification of 1973 by which ‘Hospitals' are brought within the purview of the enactment.

2. Plaintiff is the 'Poly Clinic (P) Ltd., Trichur' admittedly an establishment employing more than 20 persons. Till 1968 it was a full-fledged hospital with in-patient departments also. It is a Company registered under the Indian Companies Act. In 1968 by a resolution of the Board of Directors the in-patient wing was closed for reasons best known to them. All other facilities are continuing. Three or four Doctors two of them are Directors of the Company and one a share-holder-examine patients and prescribe medicines which are supplied from the establishment itself. The concern runs a pharmacy, a blood bank, x-ray clinic and medical laboratory all connected with treatment of patients. The attempt to bring the establishment within the purview of the Act and the Pension Fund Act and Scheme under the notification of 1964 was withdrawn by the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner himself presumably on the wrong impression that in order to constitute an establishment within that notification it must be run by Medical Practitioners and Specialists themselves. When the plaintiff was sought to be brought in under the notification of 1973 it was objected on the ground that they are having their own provident fund scheme. When that objection did not find favour, this suit was filed for an omnibus injunction against enforcement of the provisions of the Act, the Pension Fund Act and the Scheme thereof against the plaintiff, and also from taking any steps in connection thereto, even though the challenge was only against the notification of 1973 and the ground taken up was only that it is not a hospital within the meaning of the notification after 1968 since the inpatient department was stopped,

3. The Munsiff found the establishment to be a hospital coming within the notification and dismissed the suit. But in appeal the District Judge decreed the suit granting a permanent injunction restraining implementation of the Act and Scheme against the plaintiff, In doing so the District Judge adopted the restricted meaning of the word 'hospital' given in Encyclopedia Britanica and said that in the absence of in-patient facility the establishment is not a a hospital within the meaning of the notification of 1973. He also said that the establishment will not come under the notification of 1964 because it is not owned, controlled or managed by Medical Practitioners.

4. In construing the notification of 1964 the District Judge fell into the same error committed by. the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner and thought that in order to constitute it as an establishment of Medical Practitioners and Specialists, the ownership, management and control also must be, by them and otherwise it cannot be such an establishment. Even when the two existing notifications are considered on the merits and found not applicable to the establishment in question, the injuncti