Ramachandra Ayyar, C.J.

The appellants in the above appeals are employees under the Life Insurance Corporation of India and they have appealed from the judgment of Rajagopalan, J. rejecting their applications under Art. 226 of the constitution for the issue of a writ of mandamus, directing the respondent (Life Insurance Corporation of India, represented by its Zonal manager) to reinstate them to the same office with all rights and privileges attached thereto respectively held by them in the various insurance units before their integration into the Life Insurance Corporation of India. The appellants claim that they had been appointed by the various business insurance companies prior to their integration with the Insurance Corporation of India, as administrative and supervisory officers but that after the corporation came into being they were demoted to the position of field officers contrary to the statutory guarantee contained in S.11(1) of the Life Insurance Corporation Act (which will hereinafter be referred to as the Act). By the petitions out of which these appeals arise, the appellants prayed for reinstatement to their original offices which according to them would entitle them to the emoluments and advantages of class I officer of the Corporation. The appeals therefore, raise a common question as to the power of the Life Insurance Corporation of India to regulate and fit in officers of the various insurance companies which had become merged in the Corporation in the new setup, by giving them different designations or assigning different duties. The transfer of service of the employees of the insurance concerns which were taken over by the corporation is regulated by S.11 of the Insurance Corporation Act. Before we refer to that provision it will be useful to advert briefly to the background events that preceded the enactment.The first step to wards nationalization of the life insurance business in India was taken up on June 19, 1958, by the promulgation of the Life Insurance Emergency Provisions Ordinance, 1956. This Ordinance was followed by the enactment, India Act IX of 1956, containing almost identical provisions. Under the terms of the Ordinance and in the statute that followed, management and control of the business of the various insurers in the country became vested in the Central Government who appointed their nominees called custodians to take charge of the management of the various insurance concerns. These custodians, therefore, functioned under the direction and control of the Government of India. It is unnecessary in this connexion to refer to the case of a few insurers who were allowed to continue their management but they too in so doing functioned as agents of the Government. Thus both under the Ordinance as well as under the Act IX of 1956, the management of the business alone vested with the Government, the insurers being entitled to the beneficial interest in the business. This state of affairs was changed on the passing of the Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956, which after providing for payment of compensation to the various insurance concerns took over the business of the various insurers and integrated them into the State owned Corporation. The Act came into force on September 1, 1956. The magnitude of the task which the Corporation had to face is to some extent seen from the "interim reports of the activities of the life insurance Corporation of India" submitted to the Government in August, 1957. There were 243 different units engaged in doing life insurance business in India and the total number of salaried employees were nearly 27, 000. Almost the first thing to which the corporation had to devote its attention was, therefore, to achieve an organizational setup with the twin object of preserving and expanding the old business and also of integrating the various businesses taken over by it. The interim report gives a picture of the problems before the Corporation, for example, in th