1. The petitioner is an association of employees working in the Life Insurance Corporation of India, belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Buddhist fold. They have come up with the above writ petition, seeking the issue of a Writ of Declaration, to declare that the action of the respondent-Corporation in omitting to invite them for take in the proposed Information Sharing Meeting/Wage Revision Meeting was illegal and violation of Articles 14,16, and 17 of the Constitution and for a consequential direction to the respondents to invite them for such meetings.

2. I have heard Mr. Balan Haridas, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner, Ms. S. Seethalakshmi, learned Senior Panel Central Government Standing Counsel appearing for the first respondent and Mr. P.S. Raman, learned Advocate General appearing for the second and third respondents.

3. As stated earlier, the petitioner is an association of employees working in the Life Insurance Corporation of India and espousing the cause of employees who belong to the Scheduled Castes, Schedules Tribes and Buddhist fold. It is registered not under the Trade Unions Act nor under the Societies Registration Act, but under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, as a public trust. The Constitution of the petitioner-trust, filed in the typed set of papers shows that the aims and objectives of the petitioner are as follows: -

“5.1. To secure effective organization of all Schedules Caste, Schedule Tribe and Buddhist Employees of Life Insurance Corporation of India and to foster a sprit of Cooperation and promote greater understanding among them;

5.2. To secure improvements and safeguard the interests of its members by all legitimate, peaceful and democratic means as the Association may from time to time decide;

5.3. To properly represent to the management of the Life Insurance Corporation of India or any other competent Authorities in matters relating to or affecting the interests of its members;

5.4. To remove all types of difficulties experienced by the members of the Association through representation to the Management of LICI and /or by all other legitimate, peaceful and democratic means as the Association may from time to time decide and try to get the demands fulfilled;

5.5. To federate and/or affiliate itself with the other Association with similar aims and objectives.”

4. The grievance of the petitioner, in a nutshell, is –

(a) that the Corporation calls the petitioner for liaison once in 3 months for redressing the grievances of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe employee;

(b) that the wage revision which takes place once in 5 years, took place last in 2002 and the same expired in 2007;

(c) that the Corporation has no procedure for recognizing the collective bargaining agent, but invite unions/associations by picking and choosing in an arbitrary manner;

(d) that though the petitioner represents 28,000 employees and happens to be the largest body, the Corporation does not invite them for talks deliberately;

(e) that whenever decisions are arrived at, in Information Sharing Meeting, such decisions are forwarded by the Corporation to the first respondent and the same is notified by the first respondent with or without modification in the gazette;

(f) that since the Corporation deliberately omitted to invite the petitioner for the meetings, one of the members of the petitioner applied under the Right to Information Act, seeking information (i) about the eligibility criteria of the unions/associations to be invited for such meetings(ii) about the meetings held in the past, upto 5.11.2009 and about the unions/associations who were invited to participate and (iii) about the reasons for not inviting the petitioner and about the guidelines, if any for extending invitations;

(g) that a reply was given on 1.12.2009 by the Executive officer (CPIO) admitting to the fact (i) that there are no guidelines in respect of the eligibility criteria (ii) that 12 Information S