Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

Introduction:

1. The Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (“ESI”) manages a few medical colleges. To have his or her child admitted into the medical college, a person must be an “Insured Person.” And the insured person has a quota. To have this quota, the person must fulfil three conditions: (1) He or she must be an “employee” as defined under the ESI Act; (2) the employee should have been in “continuous insurable employment” for a “minimum” period of five/four/three years as on “1st January of the year of admission”; (3) the employee must have paid at least 78 days’ contribution in each contribution year.

2. Many employees have claimed the benefit under the quota, and those claims have thrown open two issues: (1) Should an employee’s “continuous insurable” service of five/four/three years be coterminous with 1st January 2107? In other words, should those who completed the period earlier than 1st January 2017 remain out of reckoning? (2) Should the contribution be continuous and without a break even in the face of a statutory intervention?

3. We