judgment

Markandey Katju, J. —

1.Leave granted.

2.This appeal has been filed against the impugned judgment dated 16.8.2007 passed by the High Court of Bombay in Writ Petition No. 1240 of 2007.

3.Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

4.Respondent No. 3, Century Industries Textiles Limited, is a company registered under the Indian Companies Act, 1956. It had about 7500 employees in its textile mill at Mumbai which suffered heavy loss due to high increase in the cost of production and competition both in the domestic as well as international market. With the object to reduce its operational cost, agreements dated 6.7.2004 and 5.9.2005 were entered into by the company with its recognized union for reducing the workforce through an offer of Voluntary Retirement Scheme (hereinafter in short ‘VRS’). However, there was hardly any success in this exercise, and only about 800 employees opted for the VRS which left with 6700 employees still on its roll. Finally, a highly upgraded VRS was offered to the employees unilaterally by the respondent-company on 13.11.2006 which offer was valid till 12.12.2006. There was an overwhelming response to the said VRS and more than 6300 em