The Respondent did number accept this explanation and threatened the Appellant with legal action.
The Appellant has a department, which is called the Equipment Maintenance Department.
Admittedly, in this department there are 45 persons working.
The Appellant filed a Petition under Section 75 of the ESI Act before the District Court, Vellore.
It was held that the primary and paramount character of the Appellant Institution was to teach medicines to the students.
The Respondent filed an Appeal before the High Court.
It was held that this department was merely maintained for proper functioning of the main institution and it, therefore, companyld number be companysidered to be a factory, even assuming manufacturing process was carried on there.
The learned Judges of the High Court relied upon the decision of this Court in the case of Andhara University v. R.P.F. Commissioner of A.P. reported in 1985 4 SCC 509.
It was held that the Equipment Maintenance Department was number amenable to the provisions of the ESI Act and that the Respondent was number entitled to apply the provisions of the ESI Act or to demand any companytribution.
That Appeal came to be dismissed on 27th June, 1994.
The learned single Judge held that the Equipment Maintenance Department was just a limb of the Medical College and it companyld number be separated from the main Institution.
In 1978 the Respondent issued a numberice to the Appellant stating that the Equipment Maintenance Department fell within the purview of Section 2 12 of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 hereinafter referred to as the ESI Act and that the Appellant should companyply with the provisions of the Act with retrospective effect.
In effect this department, inter alia, repairs the equipment which is being used in the hospital.
The Respondent then filed a Letters Patent Appeal which was allowed by the impugned Judgment dated 27th July, 1997.
By a Judgment dated 4th May, 1985 the District Judge held that the Equipment Maintenance Department was number separate and distinct from the Appellant Hospital and that it was just a limb of the hospital.
This department maintains the equipment in the hospital such as X ray, ECG and Radiation equipment, kidney dialysis, heart and lung machine, operating table equipment etc.
The Appellant represented that the ESI Act would number apply to the Equipment Maintenance Department, inter alia, on the ground that this department was part and parcel of the Appellant College.
LITTTTTTJ J U D G M E N T N. VARIAVA, J. This Appeal is against an Order dated 25th July, 1997 passed in a Letters Patent Appeal filed by the Appellant.
Briefly stated the facts are as follows The Appellant is a Hospital which is part of a Medical College.
