- (1.) IN order to make available proper services to the air passengers at the Calcutta Airport, a new domestic terminal Building is being constructed by the Airports Authority wherein the Authority seeks to provide for a Restaurant and two Snack Bar Counters. The Authority has accordingly issued a notice inviting tender for operating the Restaurant and the Snack Bars at the said new Domestic terminal Complex for a period of ten years. The tender notice made it expressly clear that only Five Star Hoteliers were eligible to participate in the said tender. Pursuant to the said notice inviting tender, five star Hoteliers have submitted their tenders after complying with the requisites there for and they are (1) Hotel Hindusthan International, (2) Park Hotel, (3) Oberoi Grand, (4) Taj Bengal and (5) Hotel Airport Ashok of the Indian tourism Development Corporation. The Airports Authority has thereafter received a notice from the Area General Manger of the respondent No. 2, indian Tourism Development Corporation, (hereinafter referred to as i. T. D. C.) calling upon the Airport Authority to cancel the aforesaid notice inviting tender and to give the job of operating the Restaurant and the two snack Bar Counters to the respondent No. 2. The Airports Authority not having acted according to the said notice, the respondent No. 1 United i. T. D. C. (hereinafter referred to as the Employees Union), being the union of the employees of the respondent No. 2, has moved this court under article 226 of the Constitution and has obtained an interim order of injunction restraining the Airports Authority from giving effect and/of further effect to the Tender Notice and further restraining the Airports authority from proceeding with the said Tender Notice in any manner whatsoever till the disposal of the writ petition. Being aggrieved, the airports Authority has preferred this appeal.
(2.) THE main contention of the writ petitioner Employees Union in support of the impugned order is that if the Restaurant and the Snack bars are allowed to be operated by some other concern other than the i. T. D. C. , the existing Restaurant, which is being run by the respondent No. 2, I. T. D. C, would be so much affected that I. T. D. C may have to close down the same which would seriously affect the services of the employees and their livelihood.
(3.) AFTER hearing the learned Counsel for the parties, we are inclined to hold, and this we say with great respect to the learned Judge, that we cannot maintain the impugned order. It is true, as urged by Mr. Hirak mitra for the Employees Union and Mr. Jayanta Mitra for the I. T. D. C. , that under the expanding horizon of the modern Labour and Industrial law, it is no longer possible to ignore the workers as they are now being treated to be as much, if not more, a part of the industrial concern as the owners thereof. As pointed out by the Supreme Court in National Textile workers' Union (A. I. R. 1983 S. C. 75), in view of the Preamble and the directive Principles of the State Policy of our Constitution and particularly after the introduction of Article 43a, it would be idle to contend that the workers should have no voice in the determination of the question as to whether the enterprise can be allowed to take a step which would affect the services and thus, the livelihood, of the workers. After the decision of the supreme Court in Olga Tellis (A. I. R. 1986 S. C. 180), it must be taken to be the settled law that the right to livelihood is a part of the right to life and no such right can be affected by the owners of an enterprise which would seriously jeopardise the livelihood of the workers. If the Airports Authority were going to take some steps affecting the employment of its own workers, the matter might have been entirely different. As at present advised, we do not see any jural relation between the Airports Authority and the employees of the I. T. D. C. which is running the existing Restaurant. The mere fact that the present Restaurant at the Airport is being run by the I. T. D. C. or its employees, cannot prevent the Airports Authority to have a fresh deal with a fresh concern in respect of a new Restaurant elsewhere.;