1. This writ petition is filed by the General Secretary of Labour Progressive Federation. The prayer in the writ petition is for a direction to the respondent State and the various State Transport corporations aligned as respondents 2 to 9 not to entertain any trade unions except the Labour Progressive Federations for the duration of its recognition with respect to the grievances of the workers of the respondents / transport corporations in relation to service conditions.

2. When the matter came up on 22.8.2011, this court directed the learned Special Government Pleader to take notice for the first respondent and notice was directed to serve on the other transport corporations. Though connected matter, i.e., W.P.No.12609 of 2011 filed by the same petitioner for the prayer not to withdraw or deprive the role of the petitioner union and its privileges and the existing practices and not to promote the present 11th respondent, i.e.,Anna Tholir Sanga Peravai and its affiliates in the matter of duties and preparation of roaster for running crew and running technical and clerical cadres. It was reported that the said matter is pending before the another learned Judge. Therefore, it could not be tagged along with this writ petition. But, when this court found that the petitioner was seeking a direction against third party trade unions, it had observed that in the absence of those unions before this court, the present writ petition cannot be adjudicated.

3. Mr.V.Prakash, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner assured that he will instruct his junior counsel to implead all parties. Accordingly, M.P.No.2 of 2011 was filed to implead respondents 10 to 21, which are registered trade unions functioning in various State owned Transport Corporations. That M.P was ordered on 8.9.2011 with a direction to give private notice to those unions. Accordingly, while some of the served unions were represented by their counsels, there are other unions have not appeared either in person or through their union.

4. Heard the arguments of Mr.V.Prakash, learned Senior Counsel leading Mr.K.Sudalaikannu, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner, Mr.S.Rajeswaran, learned Special Government Pleader for first respondent, Mr.V.R.Kamalanathan, learned Standing Counsel for respondents 2 to 9, Mr.R.Yashod Varadhan, learned Senior Counsel leading Mr.S.Muthuraj, learned counsel for 11th respondent, Ms.Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan for 16th respondent, Mr.S.Arunachalam, learned counsel for 19th respondent, Mr.V.Ajoy Khose, learned counsel for 20th respondent and Mr.R.Y.George Williams, learned counsel for 13th respondent.

5. It is the stand of the petitioner that he is the General Secretary of the Labour Progressive Federation, which is the largest following among workers working in the Transport Corporations. It has been representing workers in various negotiations both bilateral and tripartite forums. During the wage negotiations that was held during the year 1993 when one of the union which was not invited for negotiations before the then Labour minister, it had filed a writ petition in W.P.No.13717 of 1993. Finally a division bench of this court ordered election to be conducted to find out the representative character of each trade union through secret ballot under the supervision of a retired judge of this court. Thereafter, a State-wide poll was conducted among transport workers. Four unions were elected to represent the employees in the wage settlement that was pending. Based upon the representative character of those four unions, they had signed a settlement with the transport corporation on 1.9.1998 for a period of three years. That settlement came to an end on 31.8.2001. Thereafter, a fresh negotiations were conducted, but the practice adopted was not followed by the Corporation. One trade union by name Tamil Nadu Government Transport Corporations Staff Federation with registration No.601/MDU filed a writ petition before this court be