FEDERATION Vs. EMPLOYEESTVS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Employees' Federation, Bombay, represented by its president and four others, who are defendants in a suit for permanent injunction, have preferred the instant appeal under clause 15 of the Letters Patent of this Court against the order of temporary injunction pending suit by a learned single Judge in 0. A. No. 45 of 1991.

(2.) THE plaintiff -first respondent herein is a public limited company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act having its head office at 7 -B, Veli Street, Madurai, and having its branches in Madras and all over Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Goa. It consists of three divisions, viz., Sundaram Motors, Madras Auto Service and TVS, Madurai. Madras Auto Service is engaged in the business of dealing in spare parts and other accessories for motor vehicles. Sundaram Motors and T. V. Sundaram Iyengar and Sons Limited, i.e., the other two divisions, are also engaged in the business of rendering sales, service and repairs to automobiles of various descriptions, primarily with reference to the motor vehicles, which are governed by exclusive franchise given to them by manufacturers, viz., the Premier Automobiles Ltd., Bombay, Mahindra and Mahindra Limited, Bombay, Mahindra Nissan Limited, Hyderabad, and Ashok Leyland Ltd., Madras, are some such manufacturers who have given to Sundaram Motors and T. V. Sundaram lyengar and Sons franchise, and their activities are extended to substantial parts of Southern India in 17 centres, having units in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh. The fifth defendant -appellant, Thangappan, it is alleged, claiming that he was the president of the TVS Employees' Federation (the first defendant -appellant) purported to prepare a video cassette stated to be depicting the struggle of TVS workers, according to the plaintiff -respondent, with the

(3.) AFTER referring to some of the provisions of the Cinematograph Act (Act 36 of 1952), and the judgment of the Supreme Court in S. Rangarajan v. P. Jagjivan Ram, the learned judge has held that in the circumstances, it cannot be., Contended on behalf of the respondents (appellants herein) that their right under article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India had been infringed by the grant of an order of injunction. The reference to the news item in the application for ad interim injunction is attributable to a publication dated December 15, 1990, of the report of the special correspondent in the Economic Times, Bombay edition, stating that there was a new twist to the TVS workers agitation. With peaceful demonstrations, satyagrahas And marches taking them nowhere in their struggle against the TVS group, the workers have come out with a novel method to espouse their cause. A documentary film, depicting, the struggle of the TVS workers and determination of their families towards their goal of achieving their trade union rights, had been put together to disseminate information. The fifth defendant gives the reasons for making this film, viz.,