- (1.) This First Miscellaneous Appeal is directed against an order being no. 2 dated 1st September, 2016 passed by the learned Judge, XIth Bench, City Civil Court at Calcutta, in Title Suit No. 1142 of 2016 at the instance of the defendant nos. 7, 8 & 9. By the impugned order, the defendant nos. 1 & 2, namely the Calcutta Electricity Supply Corporation Limited, and its Manager (T.R. & P.S.) and their men and agents were restrained from posting any junior in any office as mentioned in Schedule 'A' during the preparation of the monthly roaster and the defendant no. 1 is directed to post the plaintiffs/petitioners as back office supervisors according to their respective seniority till date. The defendant nos. 7, 8 & 9 felt aggrieved. They have come before this Court.
(2.) The plaintiffs and the defendants, excepting the defendant nos. 1 & 2 are all employees of CESC Limited. They belong to one cadre. Some of such employees belonging to the same cadre are allowed by the employer to sit in the front office and some of them are allowed to sit in the back office. The plaintiffs complain that allthroughout the roaster of deployment of such employees belonging to the same cadre was prepared by allowing the seniors to sit in the back office and the juniors to sit in the front office. The plaintiffs allege that the employees who are allowed to sit in the back office being senior to those who sit in the front office, have the authority to dictate and/or regulate and/or supervise the work to be discharged by the employees, sitting in the front office. Considering such pleadings of the plaintiff, ad-interim order of injunction was passed, as the plaintiffs complain that the juniors to the plaintiffs were allowed to sit in the back office and thereby the plaintiffs, though they are seniors to them, will have to work in the front office under the dictate and/or supervision of the junior employees. This ad-interim order of injunction is under challenge in this appeal. Parties have not yet exchanged their affidavits in connection with the temporary injunction proceeding. As such, at this stage, the Court is only required to consider the pleadings made out by the plaintiffs in the plaint as well as in the injunction application for ascertaining the correctness of the impugned order. We are of the prima-facie view that since the plaintiffs and the defendant nos. 3 to 12 all belong to the same cadre, they cannot dictate their employer as to how their service will be utilised by their employer so long as their service conditions are not infringed. There is no rules and regulations governing the conditions of their service and/or allotment of the work of the employees. As such, the employer cannot be compelled to follow the dictate of the employees regarding allotment of their work. Employer is the best person to decide as to how optimum utilisation of service can be achieved from its employees. Here is the case where we find that the employees who are deployed in the back office do not hold a promotional post. All the employees, irrespective of their sittings in the front office as well as in the back office, belong to the same cadre. By reorientation of their deployment at the front office or in the back office, their seniority cannot be affected.
(3.) As such, we are of the prima-facie view that the learned Trial Judge ought not to have passed such ad-interim order of injunction without hearing the other side. We, thus, permit the defendants to file affidavit against the plaintiffs' application for temporary injunction. The defendants are, thus, directed to file affidavit-in-opposition to the plaintiffs' application for temporary injunction by 3rd November, 2016; reply , if any, be filed by the plaintiff by 10th November, 2016. We request the learned Trial Judge to dispose of the plaintiffs' application for temporary injunction by 30th November, 2016 without granting any unnecessary adjournment to any of the parties. We thus set aside the ad-interim order of injunction passed by the learned Trial Judge and direct that the roaster which has already been prepared by the CESC authority for the month of September, 2016 and/or roaster which will be prepared for the subsequent months by the CESC authority, will be followed and/or executed without prejudice to the rights and contentions of the parties in the temporary injunction proceeding with this rider that fate of preparation of roaster by CESC Limited for those months will ultimately be decided by the learned Trial Court while deciding the plaintiffs' application for temporary injunction. This arrangement will continue till the disposal of the plaintiff's application for temporary injunction.;