AIR INDIA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The challenge iff this writ petition is to the applicability of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 to Air India.

(2.) The petitioner Corporation was incorporated under the provisions of Air Corporation Act, 1953. Section 45 of the said Act, inter alia, enables the Corporation to frame regulations. According to section 45, as it originally stood, the regulations could be framed only with the previous consent of the Central Government. Subsequently, Section 45 (2) was amended and it is no longer .necessary to obtain; previous consent of the Central Government except that it was still necessary to obtain the government's prior consent in relation to making of the regulations with regard to the terms and conditions of serivce of officers and other employees of the Corporation, other than the Marraging Director and officers of any other categories referred to in section 44.

(3.) In pursuance of the powers under section 45(2) (b) service regulations were, for the first time, notified by the petitioner vide notification published in the Gazette of 5th December 1959. These service regulations had been framed with the prior approval of the Central Government and then superseded by a fresh set of regulations framed and published in the Gazette of India of 19th October, 1963.