ARVINDER GOYAL Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) LETTERS Patent Appeal No. 2059 of 2012 arises out of the judgment dated 29.11.2012 passed in Civil Writ Petition No. 6729 of 2012. This writ petition was decided alongwith two other writ petitions by the learned Single Judge vide the aforesaid impugned judgment. All the three writ petitions have been dismissed holding that the Employer of the writ petitioners, namely, the Punjab Alkalies & Chemicals Limited, (for short 'the PACL') is not a 'State' or any 'Authority' under Article 12 of the Constitution of India and therefore, the writ petitions are not maintainable. Though against that judgment, all the three petitioners filed appeals, the appeal filed by Mr. Anurag Puri i.e. Letters Patent Appeal No. 2058 of 2012 has been withdrawn by him. That is the reason we are left with these two Letters Patent Appeals wherein identical issue about the maintainability of the writ petitions is to be decided. In Letters Patent Appeal No. 2059 of 2012, the concerned Employee is Shri Arvinder Goyal, who had challenged the validity of the orders dated 10.04.2012, vide which his services had been terminated. The termination was without issuing any charge -sheet or show cause notice, referring to a clause in the appointment letter, stating that his services could be terminated by giving one month notice or deposit one month salary in lieu thereof. Appellant in Letters Patent Appeal No. 2064 of 2012 had challenged his transfer from Head Office Chandigarh to Naya Nangal, I.T. Department, alleging malafides and raising a grievance that as a result of his transfer he was humiliated and made to work under his juniors who were given undue promotions.

(2.) IN these writ petitions, interim orders were passed staying operation of the orders of termination and transfer, respectively. On dismissing the writ petition vide the impugned judgment, the learned Single Judge had stayed the execution of the judgment till 14.12.2012. Before this date, both these appeals were filed and the interim stay was extended. Coming to the issue as to whether the PACL is a 'State' under Article 12 of the Constitution or not, the learned Single Judge while taking note of certain judgments of the Supreme Court on the subject, held that the tests laid down in those judgments have not been satisfied in the instant case. We would like to refer to the discussion in the impugned orders at this stage.

(3.) THE learned Single Judge took note of a judgment in case Pradeep Kumar Biswas v. Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, : 2002 (2) S.C.T. 1067 : 2002 (5) SCC 111 wherein seven Judges Bench approved six tests laid down in Ramanna Daya Ram Shetty v. International Airport Authority of India : AIR 1979 SC 1628 and went on to hold that those tests were not satisfied in the instant case. We would like to reproduce the following discussion from that judgment: -