The management has the right to determine and rationalize the cabin crew complement, subject to consultation and discussion with the petitioner Association.

( 1 ) RULE. Respondents waive service. By consent, Rule made returnable forthwith.

( 2 ) BY this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners challenge the order dated 6th march, 2007 issued by respondent no. 3 for and on behalf of respondent no. 2 (hereinafter referred to as the impugned order) by which the crew complement is rationalised in the manner stipulated in the same.

( 3 ) THE crew complement as stipulated was effective from 15th March, 2007. The present petition was filed on 13th march, 2007. An application for urgent ad-interim order was made before the Division Bench of this Court on 14th march, 2007. This Court directed that the impugned order should not be acted upon. This ad-interim order is continuing till date.

( 4 ) THE petitioner is a Trade Union registered under the trade Unions Act. Respondent No. 2, Air India Limited, is a Government Company registered under the Companies Act, 1956. According to the petitioner, it is controlled by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India and is a State or other Authority as enshrined under Article 12 of the Constitution of India. Respondent No. 3 is the executive Director - HRD and IFS of respondent no. 2. The petitioner represents cabin personnel in the workmen category employed by Air India. This Union is recognised and has been negotiating with the management on various charters of demands and arriving at settlements for decades together. The grievance of the members as espoused by the petitioner pertains to the terms and conditions of service, payscales and Flight related allowances, benefits and allied matters.

( 5 ) THE cabin crew on board the Aircraft is categorised in the following manner:-

a) Inflight Supervisor b) Flight Purser c) Assistant Flight Purser d) Air Hostess e) Cabin crew (cabin personnel recruited from 2003 onwards)The post of an Inflight Supervisor is in the managerial cadre and hence the supervisors are not members of the petitioner Association. The categories of Flight Pursers, asstt. Flight Pursers and Air Hostesses recruited prior to 2003 as compared to the cabin crew recruited from 2003 onwards, are governed by separate and distinct conditions of service, scales of pay, Grades, Flight related allowances etc. They further have been assigned separate and distinct powers, duties, responsibilities and job functions on board the aircraft. Hence, there is no provision for interchangeability of job functions for the categories (a) to (d) mentioned above. The category of cabin crew (e) have uniform conditions of service irrespective of their sex and are presently deployed to perform the functions of an Asstt. Flight Purser or an Air hostess on board the aircraft, depending upon the vacancy in each of the two separate and distinct categories.

6. Bearing in mind the separate and distinct powers, duties, responsibilities and job functions on board of the categories mentioned above, the term Cabin Crew Complement can broadly be meant to be understood as the number of cabin personnel required from each of the above categories to perform their separate and distinct job functions on board the aircraft. These would include flight services in all its aspects and handling flight safety functions and emergencies. The strength of the Cabin Crew complement is determined bilaterally after taking into consideration manifold factors including the capacity/the number of passengers per aircraft, type of inflight/meal services and the corresponding workload, number of Galley complexes, the zone-wise configuration/seating of passengers, the number of cabin crew required to handle an inflight emergency including evacuation of the aircrafts, etc. The prescribed number of cabin crew for each type of aircraft multiplied by the number of aircrafts of each type along with provisions made for different types of leave, patterns of operations, duration of flights from departure to the arrival at base (which vary from on