R.A.SHARMA - (1.) Fourteen Banks including the Punjab National Bank Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as P. N. B.) were nationalised by The Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970. Six more banks were nationalised by The Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act. 1980 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The New Bank of India (hereinafter referred to as N. B. I) was one of the six banks which were nationalised by the Act. The Central Government, in exercise of power conferred on it by Section 9 of the Act, framed on 4-9-1993 the New Bank of India (Amalgamation and Transfer of Undertakings) Scheme, 1993 (hereinafter referred to as the Scheme) for amalgamation of N. B. I. with P. N. B on the commencement of the Scheme the Undertakings of N. B. I, stood transferred to and vested in P.N.B. Thereafter on 16-9-1993 P.N.B. framed guidelines for deployment of the officers and workmen staff of N.B.I. Pursuant to the said guidelines at number of orders were issued transferring the workmen staff of N.B.I. to various branches of P.N.B. Being aggrieved by the said transfers the All India New Bank of India Employees Federation and New Bank of India Employees Union as well as some of the employees of N.B.I. filed writ petition before this Court, which has been allowed by the learned Single Judge on 11/11/1993 Allahabad. P. N. B. and their officials have filed this Special appeal against the said judgment before the Lucknow Bench of this Court. Parties have exchanged affidavits and we have heard the learned counsel for parties.
(2.) An application for impleadment has been made on behalf of 27 employees of N.B.I. for their impleadment and they have sought opportunity of arguing the case and to place their legal submissions on the basis of existing facts. We have allowed their learned counsel Sri Rakesh Dwivedi to make his submissions while hearing this appeal.
(3.) Sri Sudhir Chandra, learned counsel for the appellants, has made three submissions in support of the appeal, viz. (i) the impugned orders are not the orders of transfers. They are the orders for deployment of surplus staff of N.B.I. and the learned Judge was, therefore, not justified to quash those orders, treating them as orders of transfer. (ii) Even if those orders are treated as orders of transfer, P.N.B. has the power to transfer its employees from one place to another; and (iii) the writ petition has been allowed by the learned Single Judge without giving reasonable opportunity of being heard to the appellants. Sri Raj Kumar Jain, learned counsel for the respondents, who filed the writ petition, has, apart from disputing the above contentions made the following submissions :(i) Against the Judgment of the learned Single Judge Disposing of the writ petition of the petitioner-respondents at Allahabad, no special appeal could have been filed before the Lucknow Bench and such an appeal is incompetent and is liable to be dismissed on this ground alone.(ii) The appellants are guilty of filing false affidavit and of making mispresentation before the Lucknow Bench.(iii) The appeal was filed and interim order was contained in Special Appeal without giving any opportunity to the counsel for the respondents to oppose it.(iv) No opportunity of being heard was given to the respondents before issuing the orders of deployment/transfers.(v) There is no order of Board of Directors of P.N.B. for deployment of the employees of N.B.I.The contention of Sri Rakesh Dwivedi, Learned Additional Advocate General, who appeared for the interveners, is that the orders of deployment of the employees of N.B.I. could not have been passed by P.N.B. because such a power is vested in the Central Government under clause 5 (4) of the Scheme.;