The Chief Secretary And ORS. v. Government Motor Transport Drivers Union And ORS.

Ct-08 ar 15.5.2023

IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION Circuit Bench at Port Blair RVW 001 of 2022 in WPCT 114 of 2020 with CAN 1 of 2022 The Chief Secretary & Ors.

Vs.

Government Motor Transport Drivers' Union & Ors.

Mr. Shatadru Chakraborty Mr. Ramendra Agarwal Ms. Vidisha Gupta ... For the Review Applicants Mr. Gopala Binnu Kumar ... For the Respondent no. 1 This is an application for review of our judgment and order dated 19th February, 2021. Mr. Shatadru Chakraborty, learned counsel representing the review applicants, submits that this court has erroneously applied the ratio of the judgment passed in WPCT 093 of 2020 on 18th February, 2021 in WPCT 114 of 2020 passed on 19th February, 2021 as the facts are different.

It is argued that unlike the writ petitioners in WPCT 093 of 2020 the writ petitioners in WPCT 114 of 2020 were not engaged against existing vacancies and accordingly, the ratio of the said decision may not apply in the instant case. We are unable to accept the said submission made by Mr. Chakraborty. Apart from the fact that this point was never urged before the Tribunal when this matter was heard and considered along with the similar petitions, the main defence of the petitioners was the Memorandum dated 20th August, 2006. The said memorandum was

discussed in our order dated 18th February, 2021. We have considered that the writ petitioner have rendered long years of service and in fact, were engaged against existing vacancies which would be discernible from the document being No.MT/54-6/Estt/2013/6726 dated 6th July, 2016 (appearing at page 150 of the review application) in which it was mentioned that the reason for not giving the employment to the drivers was due to an order dated 7th April, 2016. This issue was gone into and decided in the writ petition being WPCT 093 of 2020. Moreover, it appears that there are three set of writ petitions and in two set of writ petitions where issues were similar and identical, a Special Leave Petition filed by the Andaman Administration being SLP(C) No. 21052 of 2021, was dismissed on 21st February, 2022.

In view of the above, we do not find any error apparent on the face of the record. Under such circumstances, the review application being RVW 1 of 2022 stands dismissed.

In view of dismissal of the review application, nothing remains to be decided in the connected application being CAN 1of 2022 and the same is accordingly dismissed.

(Bibek Chaudhuri,J.) (Soumen Sen, J.)