SANJAY KISHAN KAUL, J. - (1.) THE present writ petition raises the issue of exercise of options by the employees of Department of Telecommunication (in short DoT) who were on deputation to the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (in short BSNL) and were desirous of being absorbed in the BSNL. The endeavour of respondents No. 2 and 3 to seek such absorption has been negated by the BSNL. It is this negation which gave rise to O.A. No. 95/CH/2006 being filed before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench which has allowed the O.A. in terms of the impugned order dated 12.03.2008. This order is sought to be assailed in the present writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India both by the BSNL and the Union of India.
(2.) WE may note that learned counsel for the petitioners has pleaded before us that there was no jurisdiction conferred under the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 in respect of the employees of the BSNL till 31.10.2008. The present O.A. was, however, filed much earlier in the year 2006 and was decided before the jurisdiction was so conferred. It is, however, conceded by learned counsel for the petitioners that no such objection was raised before the Tribunal. In fact, apparently the other decisions rendered by the Tribunal have even been accepted by the BSNL. It is really the Division Bench judgement of the Bombay High Court in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Vs A.R. Patil and others etc. etc. and connected matter, 2003(1) SLR 386 which forms the basis of submission, though that decision was of 01.08.2002 and was certainly available with the petitioners when the O.A. was filed. Be that as it may, we have the benefit of the order passed by the Tribunal and to obviate this controversy, we will examine the matter in depth and proceed to record our own reasons for the decision on the controversy in question.
(3.) NOW the facts. On the BSNL being incorporated, all employees who were working with DoT were sent on deputation to the BSNL from 01.10.2000. The question thereafter arose as to what would be the fate of the employees. It was not possible to change their employer without their consent and that is the reason a decision was taken to invite options from these employees as to whether they would like to continue as employees of DoT or would prefer to be absorbed in the BSNL. The trigger for such an option was a communication dated 14.01.2002 setting out the detailed procedure which was required to be followed while calling for such options. This, however, is stated to have given rise to a spate of litigations specifically about the mode and manner in which the options were to be called as well as absence of certain essential information for the employees to exercise their options. The matters were heard together by the Principal Bench of the Tribunal and in terms of a judgement dated 06.08.2002, necessary directions were issued qua the information to be made available for exercising the options. However, the options were required to be taken from all serving Group 'B' officers who were on deemed deputation w.e.f. 01.10.2000 as well as from those who remained in DoT and/or who were on the rolls of DoT/DTS/DTO as on 30.09.2000. We may add here that both respondents No. 2 and 3 qualified for the right to exercise such option in view of the cut -off date i.e. 30.09.2000, though they had subsequently retired on 30.10.2001 and 31.05.2002 respectively.;