( 1 ) RULE. Mr. B. G. Shukla with Mr. Nanavati waives service of notice of Rule. With the consent of the parties, the matter is taken up for the final hearing today.

( 2 ) THE present petition is preferred by the petitioner challenging the legality and validity of the order dated 5. 4. 2004 passed by the Industrial Court (which is wrongly typed as Industrial Tribunal) in Review Application No. 7 of 2000, whereby, the order passed in Revision No. 36 of 2000 is set aside and the direction is given to consider the proceedings of B. I. R. Application No. 84 of 2000 under Section 80 (C) of Bombay Industrial Relations Act (hereinafter referred as "bir Act" and to decide the Preliminary issues.

( 3 ) HEARD Mr. Sinha, learned advocate for the petitioner and Mr. Nanavati for the respondent. It appears that initially the proceedings are initiated under the BIR Act being Application No. 84 of 2000 and in the said proceedings, the application Ex. 2 was submitted by the petitioner prohibiting the respondent from making any change in the service condition including the reduction of the strength of the Meter Readers. The Labour Court passed the order on 8. 6. 2000, whereby, the interim injunctions was granted in part. It was one of the contentions of the respondent that until the order under Section 80 (C) of the BIR Act is passed, the present application is not maintainable. It is also the case of the respondent that other contentions regarding maintainability of the application before the Labour Court were also raised.

( 4 ) THE matter was carried in Revision before the Industrial Court by the respondent and order dated 6. 11. 2000 came to be passed, whereby, the Industrial Court has partly allowed the Revision and certain reliefs were granted. The petitioner Union has challenged the said order of the Industrial Court in Special Civil Application No. 12083 of 2000. This court (Coram : Ravi R. Tripathi, J.) has as per order dated 17. 8. 2001 admitted the petition and interim relief granted earlier is vacated.

( 5 ) IT is the case of the respondent that instead of challenging the order of the Industrial Court in Revision, the respondent preferred Review Application under Section 95 of the B. I. R. Act and ultimately, the Review Application is heard by the Industrial Court and order dated 5. 4. 2004 is passed by the Industrial Court, which is under challenge in this petition.

( 6 ) UPON hearing the learned counsel for the parties, it appears that there is no dispute on the pendency of writ petition before this Court being Special Civil Application No. 12083 of 2000 and the order dated 17. 8. 2001. It was submitted by Mr. Sinha, learned advocate for the petitioner, that when the petition is at large pending before this court, the Tribunal ought not to have exercised the powers of review and ought not to have passed an order, which resulted into the petition becoming infructuous, which is pending before this court. On the other hand, Mr. Nanavati, learned advocate appearing for the respondent, submitted that as Special Civil Application No. 12083 of 2000 was preferred by the petitioner qua certain reliefs ordered by the Industrial Court in the Revision and respondent, instead of challenging the order in Revision, has preferred Review Application for the other aspects, which was not the subject matter of the petition and therefore, he submitted that the Industrial Court could have passed the order and could have entertained the application. Mr. Nanavati has alternatively submitted that in case if this court is of the view that Review powers could not have been exercised or if any observation or order passed in review comes in way of the pendency of the writ petition being Special Civil Application No. 12083 of 2000, then in that case, the order passed by the Industrial Court may be set aside. However, he submitted that liberty may be reserved to the respondent to move the appropriate application before the Labour Court for decisi