(Prayer: Writ Appeal filed under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent against the order of a learned single Judge of this Court dated 15.3.2006 in W.P. No.32986 of 2005.)

A.P. Shah, C.J.

Appeal is admitted.

2. We have heard learned counsel appearing for the parties finally in this appeal. It is being disposed of by this judgment.

3. The question involved in this appeal at the instance of the Workmen’s Union pertains to the legality and validity of the order of the first respondent Corporation, whereby the workmen have been reverted from the post of Data Entry Operators (DEO) to conductor/technical staff and calls for a decision as to whether the said order was in violation of Section 33(1)(a) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for brevity sake, hereinafter referred to as the ‘Act’). A few relevant facts are required to be noted at this stage.

4. The appellant is a Trade Union registered under the Trade Unions Act, 1926. The first respondent is a company under Section 617 of the Companies Act, wholly owned, controlled and administered by the Government of Tamil Nadu. The respondent/Corporation is operating long distance passenger transport services all over Tamil Nadu and also in three southern States and the Union Territory of Pondicherry. It appears that the ticket reservation system in the respondent/Corporation was originally being done manually. Since this system required a lot of manpower and caused delay, the respondent/Corporation introduced computerised reservation system in their operational areas as well as in the Head Office and the Administrative Sections in the branches. Computers were introduced, both for reservation and also for effective and speedy accounting and other official purposes. In order to handle/operate the computers, the respondent/Corporation decided to appoint persons through internal section from amongst the workmen in their employment, except the drivers. Accordingly, 48 and odd persons were selected as Data Entry Operators, who were paid the salary payable to Conductors or Tradesman/Technical Staff, apart from a Special Allowance. In or around 2002, the respondent/Corporation decided to outsource the computer work to outside contractors by calling for tenders in newspapers. The action of the respondent/Corporation was challenged by the appellant/Union in Writ Petition No.6491 of 2002. The said writ petition was heard along with a batch of cases where the action of the other Transport Corporations in sending back the Data Entry Operators to their original posts was challenged. The learned single Judge, vide his order dated 24.2.2004, allowed all the writ petitions and held that asking the D.E.Os./E.D.P. Operators to join in their original posts was illegal and contrary to Clause 11 of the 12(3) Settlement dated 28.9.1989 and violative of Article 14 and Article 1 9(1)(g) of the Constitution of India and that any change in the conditions of service of Data Entry Operators should be done only after following the procedure contemplated under Section 9-A of the Act. Pursuant to the order passed by the learned single Judge, the second respondent issued a notice dated 5.7.2005 under Section 9-A of the Act, proposing to revert 54 Data Entry Operators working in the E.D.P. Wing to their original posts of conductor/technical staff after the expiry of 21 days from the date of the notice, i.e., with effect from 27.7.2005. Immediately on receipt of the notice dated 5.7.2005, the appellant/Union issued a strike notice dated 13.7.2005 to respondents 1 and 2 objecting to the changes proposed to be made in the notice dated 5.7.2005 and also demanding respondents 1 and 2 to continue the workmen as Data Entry Operators and for fixation of proper scale of pay from the date of their appointment as Data Entry Operators with arrears and consequential benefits. Since the first respondent is a public utility service, conciliation is deemed to have commenced immediately on the issuance of the strike notice. I