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 shall endeavour to answer these questions, for the Corporation, supposed to stand by the workmen, takes a stand that excludes many employees from a benefit.

Background:

4. All these writ appeals arise out of the judgment dated 17th July 2017 in WPC No.20558 of 2017 and other connected writ petitions. The judgment in Writ Petition No.20558 of 2017 being the lead one, the rest of the writ petitions were also dismissed based on that judgment. Aggrieved, all the writ petitioners have filed these writ appeals.

5. Since the lead judgment was rendered in WPC No.20558 of 2017, we narrate the facts from WA No.1520 of 2017, the appeal arising from that writ petition. But as the petitioners’ grievances in all the writ appeals are identical, and the respondents common, we dispose of all the writ appeals through a common judgment.

Facts:

6. The facts of each case fall in a very narrow compass. As to WA No.1520 of 2017, appellant Bindhu Radhakrishnan is an employee of a private residential school, an establishment covered by the ESI Scheme. So she is an “insured person.” Bindhu’s daughter, after her plus-two course, appeared for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education in 2016 and secured a rank. She aspired to join the undergraduate medical course.

7. Soon after the publication of NEET results, the first respondent—the ESI Corporation—published its pre-admission notification for the academic year 2017-18 to admit eligible students into the U.G. Course (MBBS/BDS) in ESIC medical colleges managed by it, under the Insured Persons (IPs) quota.

8. Bindhu wanted the ‘Ward of Insured Person’ certificate for securing admission to her daughter in an ESIC Medical Education Institution under the ‘Insured Persons Quota’ for the academic session 2017-2018. She is said to have approached the Joint Director, ESI Corporation. The certificate had to be obtained in form Annexure-2(A) as required under clause-5.2.3 of the notification. But the Joint Director did not issue the certificate on the premise that Bindhu’s contribution was not continuous: there was a break because Bindhu’s wage limit crossed the prescribed mark for her to contribute uninterruptedly. Despite Bindhu’s coming back into the scheme and contributing once the wage limit was increased, she was denied the certificate. Aggrieved, Bindhu filed WPC No.20558 of 2017.

9. Similarly, all the other appellants, too, raised a common grievance. In some writ petitions, not only the employees but also their children were arrayed as petitioners. A learned Single Judge dismissed all the writ petitions.

The Holding:

10. The holding of the impugned judgment seems to be that the admission policy is to be strictly construed and when so done, “the requirement of having the prescrib