JUDGMENT

Abhay Manohar Sapre, J.

1) Leave granted.

2) These appeals arise from the final judgment and order dated 05.01.2017 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Madras in W.A. No.1020 of 2016, W.A. No. 1351/2016 and W.A. No.1378 of 2016 whereby the Division Bench of the High Court while reversing/set aside the judgment of the Single Judge partly allowed the writ appeals and gave certain directions to the Port Trusts (appellants herein) for their compliance in favour of the writ petitioners (respondents herein).

3) In order to appreciate the issues involved in these appeals, it is necessary to set out the relevant facts hereinbelow.

4) There are two Port Trusts in Chennai. One is known as “Chennai Port Trust” and the other is known as “Ennore Port Trust”, now called “Kamarajar Port Trust”.

5) Chennai Port is one of the oldest ports in the country. Amongst several operational activities of loading, unloading, spillages and clearing of various kinds of the goods, which are undertaken regularly in the Port, one such activity that is operational on regular basis is handling of “Coal and Iron Ore”.

6) In order to carry out the loading, unloading, spillages and clearing the coal and i