Ashok Kumar Mathur, J. - (1.) All these appeals and writ petitions involve common questions of law, therefore, they are being disposed of by a common judgment.
(2.) The main question for determination in all these matters is that whether Balmer Lawrie & Co. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the company), a Government company, is a 'State' within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution or not? In order to appreciate the controversy involved in the matter one has to see that how this company was born. We have to examine its constitution to find out whether it can be said to be an instrumentality of the State or not. We have to find out that how this company came into existence that is how this company was borne because that will only show that whether it is an instrumentality of the State or not as that is dependent upon its birth mark. In order to find out that how this company came to be borne we have to start from its constitution and that can only reflected from its Memorandum and Articles of Association. The law on the' subject has been crystallised by various decisions of the Apex Court bearing on the subject which we shall advert to herein after. In all these cases the constitution of the corporation or the company has always been decisive in the matter. In some cases the Court after examining the constitution of the company/corporation came to the conclusion that it is an instrumentality of the State and in some other cases on the anvil of various tests/touch stones have found that it is not an instrumentality of the State.
(3.) This controversy is of more than two decades old and since then various decisions of the Supreme Court has laid down various tests to find out whether it is an instrumentality of the State or not. Therefore, in this background we have to begin with how this company came to be constituted.;