ANANDAMOY BHATTACHARJEE, J. ( 1 ) THE Court.- The only question involved in this Writ Petition is whether the Nursing Home run by the Petitioner Company is an "institution for treatment or care of the sick, infirm, destitute or mentally unfit" within the meaning of section 4 (1) (c) of the West Bengal Shops and Establishments Act, 1963, to go out of the provisions of that Act. It is not disputed, as it obviously can not be, that if the Nursing Home is such an institution as aforesaid, then, under the provisions of section 4 (1) of the Act, "this Act shall not apply to the institution". ( 2 ) SOME of the employees of this Nursing Home, being the Respondents No. 3, No. 4, No. 5 and No. 6 made applications to the Referee, the Respondent No. 2, being an officer or authority appointed under section 14 (2) of the Act, for the recovery of their wages alleged to have been unlawfully deducted by the petitioner and the Referee, by the impugned order dated 2. 4. 90, has held the Nursing Home to be "simply a Commercial Establishment for carrying on trade or business" to be fully and squarely governed by the provisions of the Act and not to be exempted from its operation under section 4 (1) (c) thereof. The Petitioner seeks to assail that order in this Writ Petition. ( 3 ) AT one stage, Mr. Gupta, the learned Counsel for the Petitioner attempted to urge that the Nursing Home of the Petitioner is not a "commercial Establishment" within the meaning of the Act and as such the Act would not apply thereto. But the main argument advanced by Mr. Gupta for the Petitioner is that even assuming the Nursing Home to be such a Commercial Establishment, the Act would not apply to this establishment, even if commercial, as it is an institution "for the treatment or care of the sick, infirm, destitute or mentally unfit" within the meaning of section 4 (1) (c) of the Act, and would thus stand outside the Act. Mr. Bhattacharjee, the learned Counsel for the Respondents Nos. Mr. Bhattacharjee, the learned Counsel for the Respondents Nos. 3 to 6, has, however, argued that even if the Nursing Home is, as a Nursing Home is expected to be, an establishment for treatment or care of the sick and infirm, it is not an institution to come within the protection or exemption as provided in section 4 (1) (c) of the Act. The provisions of section 4 (1) are reproduced hereinbelow for the facility of discussion. "4. Act or Some of its Provisions not Applicable to Certain Establishments Shops and Persons: (1) This Act shall not apply to - (a) offices of or under the Central or State Government, the Reserve Bank of India, any railway administration or any local authority; (b) Any railway service, airways service, water, transport service, tramway or motor service, postal, telegraph or telephone service, any system of public conservancy or sanitation of any industry, business or undertaking which supplies power, light or water to the public; (c) institutions for the treatment or care of the sick, infirm, destitute or mentally unfit; (d) shops or stalls in any public fair or bazar held for a charitable purpose; or (e) stalls and refreshment rooms at railway station, docks, wharves or airports. " ( 4 ) MR. Bhattacharjee has firstly urged that "institutions" to come within section 4 (1) (c) of the Act must be governmental or semi-governmental in nature or an instrumentality of a State or a local authority. In effect, he has endeavoured to invoke the principle of interpretation of statutes known as Noscitur A Soccis and has argued that institutions in clause (c) must be of the nature of the offices or services as specified in clauses (a) and (b ). The said principle simply means that an expression is to be understood in the light of the collocation or context in which it is used and to derive the colour, texture or contour of the preceding and the succeeding words. The rule of Ejusdem Generis is really a specis of this principle. But all these principles of interpretation are only to serve as helpful aids, as and when necessary, but not as absolute guides. A man may be known by the company he keeps and a word may also be construed in the light of other words accompanying it. The rule of Ejusdem Generis is really a specis of this principle. But all these principles of interpretation are only to serve as helpful aids, as and when necessary, but not as absolute guides. A man may be known by the company he keeps and a word may also be construed in the light of other words accompanying it. But this is not something invariable, as there may be a bad man in a good company and a good man in a bad company. ( 5 ) BUT that apart, a scrutiny of the provisions of clauses (a) and (b) and also clauses (d) and (e), extracted hereinabove, would show that they also refer to private, non-governmental and non-official establishments like private transport service, private motor service, private shops or stalls in any public fair or bazar or stalls or refreshment rooms run by private persons in railway stations or airports. Therefore, even applying the principle of Noscitur A Soccis, it is not possible to hold that an institution to come within clause (c) must not be a private one and must be of a governmental, quasi-governmental or some such allied nature. ( 6 ) IN its ordinary connotation, the expression "institution" and the expression "establishment" or "undertaking" are very often synonymous and we must go by such ordinary connotation of words, even in a statute, unless the statute itself indicates, by inserting a 'definition' or otherwise, that some extra-ordinary connotation, different from what is accepted in common parlance, is aimed at. I do not find any such indication to the effect that the expression "institutions" in clause (c) has been used not in the ordinary sense of establishment or undertaking. Even in Manchester Corporation vs. Mcadam (1896 AC 500 at 511-512), purported to have been referred to by the Referee in the impugned order, Lord Macnaghten observed that though it may not always be easy to define the meaning of the term "institution", it would mean an undertaking or a body (so to speak) called into existence to translate the purpose as conceived in the minds of the founders into a living and active principle". ( 7 ) MR. ( 7 ) MR. Bhattacharjee has then urged that even assuming that the Nursing Home is an institution where sick and infirm persons are treated and given medical care, the Petitioner Company also runs a "chemist Shop" and also a "snack Bar" in the premises of the Nursing Home. This has not been disputed by the Petitioner in its reply. I am here concerned, not with the Petitioner Company, but with its Nursing Home only and I do not know whether this "chemist Shop" and the "snack Bar" are run as parts or departments of that Nursing Home itself. If these are not run as parts of the Nursing Home, these should not detain me in determining the question as to whether the Nursing Home would be exempt from the operation of the Act as an institution for medical treatment and care under section 4 (1) (c ). ( 8 ) BUT even assuming, that the 'chemist Shop' and the 'snack Bar' are run as parts or departments of the Nursing Home, I do not think that a Nursing Home, if it is otherwise an institution for medical care and treatment within the meaning of section 4 (1) (c), would cease to be so, simply because it has also provided for a "chemist Shop" or a "snack Bar" in the Nursing Home, which may be used not only by the patients or Weir visitors, but by outsiders also. ( 9 ) THERE should be no doubt that in a case like this, the dominant or the major purpose of the Institution would determine its legal character. It could not be disputed that the dominant or the major purpose, both qualitatively or quantitatively, of the Nursing Home is medical treatment and care, and if that is so, then a Snack Bar, or a T. V. Parlour or a Chemist Shop would rather pale into insignificance and would not affect the dominant character of the institution. It could not be disputed that the dominant or the major purpose, both qualitatively or quantitatively, of the Nursing Home is medical treatment and care, and if that is so, then a Snack Bar, or a T. V. Parlour or a Chemist Shop would rather pale into insignificance and would not affect the dominant character of the institution. I had occassion to advert to this aspect while dealing with a somewhat similar and analogous question under section 13 (1) (h) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956 in the Division Bench decision of this Court in Mono Ranjan Dasgupta vs. Suchitra Gangue (AIR 1989 Calcutta 14 at 20-21) and after referring to some of the earlier decisions of this Court and also the decisions of the Supreme Court in Premchand vs. District Judge ( AIR 1977 SC 364 ) and Sant Ram vs. Rajinder Lal ( AIR 1978 SC 1061 ), I have held that the dominant or the major purpose would determine the character of the user. In Premchand (supra, at 366), the Supreme Court has held that the fact that in a portion of the tenanted premises the tenant runs a tailoring shop also would not convert a residential tenancy to a non-residential one. And in Sant Ram (supra, at 1604), it has been held that a tenancy for commercial or nonresidential purpose would not cease to be so, if the tenant also stays, cooks and eats in a portion thereof. The major, the dominant or the prominent purpose of an establishment would decide and determine its character and that being so, the Nursing Home in question is to be treated as an institution for the treatment and care of the sick and infirm for the purpose of section 4 (1) (c), notwithstanding its having a "chemist Shop" or a "snack Bar" and accordingly the provision of the West Bengal Shops and Establishments Act, 1963 shall not apply to it. ( 10 ) MR. Bhattacharjee has finally urged that in order to come within the meaning of the expression "institutions" in section 4 (1) (c), the establishment must be of a public nature and not restricted to a category or a group of persons only. ( 10 ) MR. Bhattacharjee has finally urged that in order to come within the meaning of the expression "institutions" in section 4 (1) (c), the establishment must be of a public nature and not restricted to a category or a group of persons only. It is true that in the Memorandum of Association of the Petitioner company it is stated that the object is to maintain and manage a hospital "for the treatment of patients suffering from disease or accident and to provide such care, nursing and attention as may required for their proper treatment", "for the use of individual members and their families, and the employees of member firms a companies and their families and others as are of westernised habits and diet, but without any regard for their race, descend, language, religion, domicile, residence or duration of residence". Mr. Bhattacharjee has accordingly urged that the Nursing Home, being thus restricted to the members and their families and employees and only those others who are of westernized habits and diet, lacks that public character to be reckoned as an institution within the meaning of section 4 (1) (c ). I do not know wherefrom Mr. Bhattacharjee gets any support or authority for the view that an establishment, in order to amount to an institution must inevitably be open to all and sundry and that there can not be an institution for any particular section of the public, like "those of westernised habits and diet". I have found none. ( 11 ) MAHATMA Gandhi, still referred to as the Father of the Nation, repeatedly cautioned us that while we must have the cultures of all the countries blown around us, we must refuse to be blown off our feet by any of them. It is not for me to discuss here as to whether the teachings of Mahatma have all these days received any appreciative application in post-independence India or he has received only empty salutations and whether, to borrow from Krishna Iyer, the distance between us and the Rajghat has daily increased. But looking to the people around us, we may have no doubt that we have allowed ourselves to be blown off from our own culture and have become westernised in our ways of life, though, culture, language, dress, expression, house-hold furniture and fixtures and also food-habits. But looking to the people around us, we may have no doubt that we have allowed ourselves to be blown off from our own culture and have become westernised in our ways of life, though, culture, language, dress, expression, house-hold furniture and fixtures and also food-habits. Our paramount Charter, our system of Government, our administrative set-up and our Judicial process, our education and even our sports and games are all western and to many of us, the west is the whole world. The Nursing Home, therefore, even if restricted to such westernised people, would nevertheless cater to the needs of a major bulk of the people and would not thereby lose its public character. An institution, otherwise satisfying the requirements of section 4 (1) (c), can not cease to be so if it is sought to be restricted to people of say, South-Indian or North-Indian habits and diet. ( 12 ) I, therefore, bold that the Nursing Home of the Petitioner Company is an institution "for the treatment of care of the sick or infirm" within the meaning of section 4 (1) (c) of the West Bengal Shops and Establishments Act, 1963 and, therefore, the provisions of the Act would not apply to the Nursing Home and the impugned order of the Referee dated 2. 4. 90 and the proceeding pending before him are to be quashed. Let appropriate Writs issue accordingly. No costs. Petition allowed