- (1.)The state of Tamil Nadu is the appellant assailing the judgment of the division bench of Madras High Court. The dispute centres round the question as to whether the state government has the power and competence to frame rules and regulations determining the service-conditions of the employees of different corporations which are in fact the government companies under the Companies Act.
(2.)Be it stated that in the state of Tamil nadu originally there were only four corporations and in course of time number of corporations grew to 23. Way back in the year 1984 the state government drew up a seniority list of the employees belonging to the cadre of assistant manager and deputy manager on the basis of the continuous length of service. The next promotional post from the post of deputy manager is the senior deputy manager which post has come into existence at a later point of time. In 1987 when the question of promotion to the post of senior deputy manager from the post of deputy manager cropped up for consideration the government changed the criteria for determination of seniority in the cadre of deputy manager and on the other hand indicated that instead of entry into the cadre of deputy manager being the sole criteria for seniority in the cadre, weightage has to be given to their past services rendered in the cadre of assistant manager as well as the other supervisory cadre. The present respondents felt aggrieved by the aforesaid decision of the state government and without impleading their employer, namely, the corporations, filed writ applications which were heard and disposed of by a learned single judge.
(3.)The contentions raised before the learned single judge were that the subsequent change of decision of the government in 1987 is arbitrary and illogical and affects the chances of promotion of the employees, who ought to have been governed by the principle that had been evolved in 1984. The prayer in the writ petition was to quash the 1987 decision and to implement the 1984 decision for the purpose of promotion to the post of sr. deputy manager. The learned single judge while dismissing the writ petition was of the opinion that the policy/decision of 1984 create a lot of anomaly and several complaints had been received and to avoid such anomalies and to redress grievance of the employees the government came forward with the decision of the 1987. According to the learned single judge the impugned decision of 1987 cannot be held to be arbitrary or irrational requiring interference of the court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.