The territorial jurisdiction of a High Court to entertain a writ petition challenging an order of the Principal Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal is determined by the place where the cause of action arises, and the principle of forum conveniens can be applied to determine the appropriate court to hear the petition.

Nishita Mhatre, J.

1. THE writ application has been preferred against the decision of the Principal Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal in O.A. No. 1132 of 2011 which was heard alongwith O.A. No. 1133 of 2011, O.A. No. 1232 of 2011 and 1325 of 2011; the last mentioned being filed by the petitioner herein. 2 THE brief facts arising in the present petition are as follows :-

2. THE grievance of the petitioner here is regarding the seniority list dated 5th November 2008 prepared in respect of the employees of the Income Tax Department. THE petitioner challenged this seniority list by preferring O.A. No. 1325 of 2011. Similarly affected employees in various parts of the country filed original applications before the tribunal challenging the same seniority list. THE Principal Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal, therefore, transferred all matters pending before the various benches of the Central Administrative Tribunal to itself where an application on the same issue was pending. Accordingly, the application O.A. 1132 of 2011 was filed by Amit Kumar Chattopadhyay before the Ranchi Bench, O.A. No. 1133 of 2011 was filed by T.K. Haridas Kumar before the Kochi Bench and O.A. No. 1232 of 2011 was preferred by S. Ranganathan before the Pune Bench. Those applicants have been joined as proforma respondents in the present writ application as respondents No. 16, 17 and 18 respectively. THE respondents in each of the original applications have been joined as party respondents between 5 and 15 to the present writ application. The Principal Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal has dismissed the original applications filed by the petitioner and respondents 16, 17 and 18 and hence the present writ application.

3. MR. Ayan Banerjee, learned counsel appearing for the respondent no. 9 who was a respondent in O.A. No. 1132 of 2011 before the Ranchi Bench and O.A. 1133 of 2011 before the Kochi Bench has raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the present writ application. He submitted before us that respondent no. 9 was not a party to the original application filed by the writ petitioner and, therefore, he ought not to have 3 been joined as a respondent in the present petition. His next objection to the maintainability of the writ petition is that the Calcutta High Court would have no jurisdiction to decide about the correctness of the impugned order as it had been passed by the Principal Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal situated at New Delhi. According to him, therefore, it is only the Delhi High Court, which would have the territorial jurisdiction to entertain the writ petition against the impugned order. The learned advocate has placed reliance on judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of L. Chandra Kumar, Appellant vs. Union of India and Ors., Respondents reported in AIR 1997 Supreme Court 1125. He drew our attention to the observation of the Supreme Court in paras 91 and 99 in support of his submission that it is only the Delhi High Court which could entertain the writ petition challenging the order of the Principal Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal.

4. MR. R.N. Majumdar, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner has submitted that the cause of action arose in Calcutta and, therefore, the present writ is maintainable. According to him the provisions of Article 226(2) of the Constitution of India clearly permit a petition to be filed before a particular High Court if even a part of cause of action has arisen within the territorial jurisdiction of that High Court. He submitted that there can be no doubt that the petitioner is employed in Kolkata. He is prejudicially affected by the order in Kolkata and that since the seniority list is an all India seniority list and petitioner would be entitled to maintain the present petition before this Court. The learned counsel has relied on the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Stride well Leathers (P) Ltd. and ors. vs. Bh