HAMDARD EMPLOYEES AND GENERAL WORKERS UNION REGD DELHI AND GHAZIABAD Vs. NATIONAL CAPITAL TERRITORY OF DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By way of this review petition, the respondents 4 & 5 in the writ petition being CW4415/2001 (hereinafter referred to as the 'said writ petition'), inter alia, pray that the judgment and/or order dated 29.07.2003 (hereinafter referred to as the 'said order') passed by this court be recalled, reviewed and/or modified and the said writ petition be dismissed.

(2.) Prior to the filing of this review petition, the respondents 4 and 5 (applicants herein) had filed a Letters Patent Appeal being LPA No.740/2004 in this High Court. When the said appeal came up for preliminary hearing, the appellants (Respondents 4 & 5 in the said writ petition) sought leave to withdraw the appeal with liberty to seek review of the said order. By an order dated 06.08.2004, a Division Bench of this Court dismissed the appeal as withdrawn with the aforesaid liberty. Thereafter, the review petition was filed. Subsequently, an amendment of the review petition was sought which was allowed on 21.04.2005 and ultimately the review petition, as amended, was heard on 12.08.2005.

(3.) Before I mention the grounds for seeking review, it would be pertinent to point out that by the said order dated 29.07.2003, this Court had disposed of the said writ petition with the direction that all those employees of the erstwhile Hamdard Factory at Lal Kuan, Delhi, who had been relocated to Ghaziabad and who were willing to change their residences to locations near the factory at Ghaziabad, would be entitled to shifting bonus as indicated by the Supreme Court in the case of M.C. Mehta v. Union of India and Ors: (1996) 4 SCC 750. These directions were given in the backdrop that the factory belonging to Hamdard Dawakhana (Wakf) Laboratories, represented by the respondents 4 & 5, was situated at Lal Kuan, Delhi and had to be shut down in view of the said decision of the Supreme Court being an industry falling in the 'H' category . In the said order, it is recorded that the entire issue in the said writ petition was with regard to the entitlement for shifting bonus insofar as the workmen who agreed to shift with the industry were concerned. It was noted in the said order that the Supreme Court had specifically directed, in the case of workmen employed in 168 industries mentioned in M.C. Mehta (supra) that they would be entitled to the shifting bonus to help them settle in the new location. In the said order, it is recorded that:-