M.R. Calla, J. - (1.) This special appeal under Section 18 of the Rajasthan High Court Ordinance, 1949 is directed against the order dated 14.9.2001 passed by the learned Single Judge during the pendency of S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 504/2000.
(2.) The relevant part of the order dated 14.9.2001, which is impugned in this appeal, is reproduced as under: "In the present case, it goes without saying that the workers are entitled to their unpaid wages for the period from August, 1999 and the company is liable to pay the same. Even though the State was earlier agreeing to pay a loan of Rs. 20 Crores to the company, but for the reasons best known to the State, it did not do so. In my opinion, it is the duty of the State to see that the company is rehabilitated and that the workers who are not been retained so far get their due emoluments and paid accordingly as per law. Without there being any fault of the workers they are made to suffer and plight can be imagined of the struggle in meeting the home expenses, educational expenses of their children to which this Court cannot close its eyes and, therefore, a direction is required to be given to the State Government to make arrangements for payment of at least 3 months salary immediately within 15 days as a very minimal relief which can be treated as a loan to the company, as at one time the State had decided the loan about Rs. 20 Crores to the company out of which only a part payment of Rs. 4.50 Crores was paid. It is also unfortunate to note that no serious efforts have been made for rehabilitating the company even though the matter is pending before the BIFR for last more than one year. Efforts shall be made by the BIFR to frame the rehabilitation scheme within two months and the respondents shall make all endeavour to cooperate. The wages of the workers shall be first charged after the rehabilitation. In my opinion, a good profiting company had been totally finished and closed without there being any apparent reasons, nor any authority has even made efforts to go into this aspect. There are allegations of mis-management, mis-appropriation and mis-direction of the amount. The responsibility of such lapse is required to be fixed and for the purpose of preliminary enquiry is required to be conducted as to how and under what circumstances and with what interest, the company of worth of crores of rupees had been reduced and blocked to such a situation i.e. production is totally stopped, rendering 100s of workers job-less, starving on the road. It requires investigation for fixing a civil as well as criminal liability and therefore, it is a fit case where an enquiry in the matter is required to be made for fixing civil as well as criminal liability so that the facts would become more clear. This court feels it necessary that the preliminary CBI enquiry is required to be initiated without any further delay. It shall be the duty of the State Government and officers of the company to assist the CBI enquiry and to hand over all the record which may be required in this respect by the investigating authority. The Director, CBI, New Delhi, is directed to depute an independent responsible officer to make the enquiry and a report be submitted to this court within a month positively. (Copy be sent to CBI). Further directions shall be given on seeing the report, List this case on 11.10.2001."
(3.) On 27.9.2001, the appeal was admitted and the Court, while admitting the appeal and issuing notices, recorded that subject to the maintainability of the appeal, there will be stay of the impugned order passed by the learned Single Judge to the extent of back wages only and not in other respects.;