- (1.) ARUN Tandon, J. These two appeals having been filed against the same judgment dated 23. 5. 2008, passed by learned Single Judge of this Court in writ petition No. 5872 of 2008, North Central Railway Employees Sangh and an-other\i. Union of India and others, have been heard together and are being dis-posed of by this common judgment.
(2.) SRI Navin Sinha, learned Senior Advocate, assisted by SRI Siddharth Singh nas appeared for the appellant in appeal No. 754 of 2008. SRI Govind Saran nas appeared for appellant in Specialappeal No. 761 of 2008, SRI K. N. Tripathi, learned Senior Ad vocate assisted by SRI N. K. Pandey and SRI Chandan Kumar have ap peared for the contesting respondent, North Central Railway Employees Sangh, the petitioner in the writ petition. It is sufficient to refer the facts and pleadings in special appeal No. 745 of 2008 for deciding both the appeals. Brief facts of the case for deciding the issues raised in the appeals are ; the appellant, respondent No. 1 and respondent No. 7 are registered trade unions undertrade Union Act, 1926 of the railway employees of the ?on?, North Central Railway. Both claimed recognition as registered unions to interact with Railway authorities qua discharge of various functions and obligations in respect of service conditions and welfare of the employ ees. Modalities and methodology for electing the trade union, to be recognised by the railways have been finalised by the Government of India namely; 'mo dalities For Conducting Secret Ballot For The Purpose Of Granting Recogni tion To Registered Railway Trade Unions Representing Ali Categories of Group 'c'and Group 'd' Employees Of Indian Railways'. The election process in accordance with the modalities was initiated by the Railways by publishing the election programme in the newspaper 'amar Ujala' on 10. 12. 2007. date for nomination was fixed as 25. 10. 2007. date of scrutiny of nominations and publica-tion of the-final list of unions found eligible to participate were notified as 26th and 27 1 November respectively while 29th November, 2007 was fixed as date for polling. The appellant and respondent unions participated by filing their nominations. Nomination of respondents No. 1 and 7 were provisionally accepted and their names were shown in the fina? list of the unions permitted to participate in the elections. After poi?, vtes received by different unions, the number of valid votes and number of invalid votes were counted and recorded. The details of votes received by the appellant and the respondent unions and one other union namely; Railway Mazdoor Union men-tioned in the judgment of the learned Single Judge to which there is no dis-pute, is to the following effect: SN Names of Total Total valid Votes Votes Votes Union (With Electorate votes cast obtained by obtained obtained regn. No.) the union as %age as %age of ofvalid Electorate voted cast 1 NCRES 20593 29. 21 34. 570 (9168) 7998 11. 34 13. 426 2 NCRKs (9275) 29583 41. 96 49. 662 3 NCRMu (9160) 4 RMU (By-ll- 1394 01. 97 02. 340 7867) The respondent No. 1 filed writ petition No. 5653 (5 of 2007, challenging the decision of acceptance of the nomination of respondent No. 7, which writ petition was dismissed on 16. 11. 2007 by this Court holding that election process has begun, it was left open for the petitioner to raise such lega? and factual issues afterthe elections are over. Anotherwrit petition No. 61261 of 2007 was filed by the petitioner questioning the result of elections. A Division Bench of this Court vide itsoderdated 12. 12. 2007 disposedof the writ petition requesting the Gen eral Manager North Central Railway, Allahabad to examine as to whether objec-tion, if any filed by the writ petitioner are referable to clause 27 of the modalities and in case such objections are found to be legally entertainable, the same may bedecided on merits. In pursuanceof the order of this Court dated 12. 12. 2007, the General Manager by his order dated 24. 12. 2007 rejected the objection and upheld the result of the election declared on 3. 12. 2007. Against the order dated 24. 12. 2007, issued by the General Manager, the writ petition was filed giving rise to this appeal.
(3.) IN the writ petition, the petitioner had prayed for quashing the order dated 12. 12. 2007 and 24. 12. 2007. Afurther prayer was made to direct the respondent authorities to ascertain the result of the election for recognition after excluding the vot. es of respondent No. 5 (North Central Railway Karmchari Sangh) and de-clare the petitioner as a du?y recognised trade union. The writ petition filed by the respondent No. 1 has been allowed wctejudgmentand order dated 23. 5. 2008 of learned Single Judge. Learned Single Judge has held that the votes polled by the writ petitioner be rounded of to 35% on the basis of which, the writ petitioner shall be entitled to be treated as recognised trade union. The appellant had secured the maximum vote in the election and was declared to be the only recognised trade union as per the result declared by the Railways. The appellant moved an application in the writ petition and was impleaded as one of the respondents. The judgment of the learned Single Judge has been challenged by the appellant as well as Union of INdia through General Manager, North Central Railway. Sri Navin Sinha, learned Senior Advocate appearing for the appellant con-tended that the respondent No: 1 could not secure 35% votes of the total valid vot. es polled hence, was not entitled to be declared elected. The votes polled by the respondent No. 1 were only 34. 57% which have been rounded off by learned Single Judge as 35% for declaring the respondent No. 1 as etected Submission is that the principles of rounding off is not applicable in the facts of the present case, where difference between 34. 57% and 35% as per the valid votes polled is 256 votes. he submits that paragraph 5 (ii) of the modalities contains a require-ment of at least 35% of the valid votes polled which is thus, the minimum require-ment for declaring an union to be recognised. Reliance has been placed by Sri Navin Sinha on a Division Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Vani Pati Tripathi v. Director General, Medical Education and Training, Jawahar Bhawan, Ashok/warg, Lucknow and others, 2003 (2) ESC 1061, Pranjal Bishnoi (Minor) v. U. P. Technical University and others, reported in 2003 (3) ESC 1470 and a Divi-sion Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Noorali Ansari v. State of U. P. and others, 2008 (4) ADJ 552, for the proposition that rounding off principle is not applicable in the facts of the present case. Sri Sinha further submitted that re-quirement of 35% of the valid votes polled for declaring an union to be recognised, was approved by the Apex Court vide its order dated 8. 3. 2004 passed in Special Leavetoappeal No. 3716 of 2004, Railway Board and anotherv. Southern Railway Mazdoor Union and another. he further submits that the object of the modalities cannot be read as recognising as many unions as possible rather for recognition, there has to be strict adherence to the modalities. he further submits that validity of the modalities, which requires 35% of the valid votes polled, was not even challenged in the writ petition.;