JUDGMENT :

SANJAY KISHAN KAUL, J.

1. The celebration of independence of our country also came with many challenges, including in the financial sector. The Industrial Finance Corporation of India Ltd. (for short ‘IFCI’) was the first financial corporation set up soon thereafter, in 1948, with the object of providing for the industrial and infrastructural needs of the new born India and to enable the growth of the economy through medium and long term finance. Passage of time and financial & infrastructural changes resulted in the transformation of IFCI from a statutory corporation to a company under the Indian Companies Act, 1956, in the year 1993. The status of this institution, at present, is of a Government of India Undertaking and a Non-Banking Financial Company, primarily engaged in corporate lending.

2. Changing needs found the IFCI with having, possibly, an excess number of employees at various levels. In order to shed the flab, there have been voluntary retirement schemes introduced, from time to time. The present dispute pertains to the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (for short ‘VRS’) of 2008. The contesting respondents in the present case are thirty-one (31) employees of IFCI who