RAJESH SHARMA Vs. STATE OF M.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SHRI R.D. Jain, Sr. Advocate with Pawan Dwivedi and Shri D.S. Tomar, Advocates for the Petitioners. Shri Vivek Khedkar, Government Advocate for State. Shri Prashant Sharma with Shri S.S. Rajput, Advocate for Respondent No. 3. The Petitioners, who are employees of the Madhya Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation have filed the petition with regard to providing them alternative employments in other Government Undertakings or their absorption in the service of State Government. The Petitioners further prayed that the Respondents be restrained from implementing the Voluntary Retirement Scheme, 2005.

(2.) THE Madhya Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation was incorporated on 1 -1 -1962 under the provisions of Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950. The Corporation framed rules and regulations with regard to appointments of its employees. The regulations have been named as M.P. State Road Transport Corporation Employees Services Regulations, 1959. The State Road Transport Corporation has been running in heavy loss even though it was not able to pay the retiral dues of its employees within time. On 31st March, 2004, the total loss to the Corporation was Rs. 735 Crores and the liability was Rs. 1033.68 Crores. The Corporation had to pay the retiral dues including payment to L.I.C., which is near about Rs. 183.87 Crores. Besides this the Corporation had been running in continuous loss of Rs. 5 Crores per month. Looking to the above facts, the Corporation and the State Government have taken a decision to close the Corporation because it was not possible to restructure the Corporation and run it on profit basis. At that time, near about 10 thousands employees had been working in the Corporation. The Cabinet took a decision to close the Corporation and submitted its recommendation to the Central Government. The Central Government vide letter dated 23rd March, 2005 granted the permission to the State Government to close the State Road Transport Corporation in terms of Section 39(1) of the Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950. The Central Government also advised the State Government to safeguard the interest of employees of M.P. State Road Transport Corporation.

(3.) 90% employees have opted the V.R.S., and in the present case some employees did not apply for V.R.S., and filed petitions before this Court. In Gwalior region near about 127 persons have not opted for V.R.S, and they filed petitions before this Court. In the present petition the number of Petitioners are 29. Some employees, who opted for V.R.S. also filed petitions.