The judgment establishes that retired persons form a separate class from those in service, and the settlement under Section 12(3) of the Industrial Disputes Act, arrived at by negotiation and consent of parties, cannot be considered discriminatory as parties are bound by the act of representing Unions.

1. This judgment shall dispose of the following writ petitions, viz., as common question of law and facts are involved in all these writ petitions. However, for the sake of brevity, the facts are being taken from W.P.No.25245 of 2008.

2. The petitioners have invoked the extraordinary equitable jurisdiction of this Court with prayer for issuance of a writ in the nature of Mandamus, directing the respondent Board to extend the Special Grade Scheme to the Petitioners, which was introduced vide Memo (Per) No. 54595/A3/A31/2006-5 dated 05.04.2007.

3. The petitioners in these writ petitions are the retired Assistant Executive Engineers and Junior Engineer Grade I respectively of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. The petitioners retired from the services between 01.12.2000 and 30.11.2002.

4. The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board regulates service conditions of its employees by long term settlement, which are entered into under Section 12(3) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. One long term settlement was entered into on 01.12.1996 between the workmen and the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, which was to remain in force for a period of 4 years, which, came to an end on 30.11.2000.

5. The Union representing the workmen submitted their fresh charter of demands and negotiations for entering into the long term settlement. The negotiations between the Management and Union went on nearly 5 years and fresh long term settlement was arrived at on 15.10.2005.

6. This settlement was a statutory settlement under Section 12(3) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

7. It was agreed that the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board will revise the wages from 01.12.2002. The period between, i.e. 01.12.2002 to 30.11.2002, was not covered, therefore, it was decided to pay consolidated amount of Rs.2400/- (Rupees Two Thousand and Four Hundred only) at the rate of Rs.100/-per month. The payment of Rs.100/- was agreed to be extended to workmen / officers, who retired / voluntarily retired / expired between 01.12.2000 to 30.11.2002 proportionately.

8. It was also decided, that the pension of employees, who retired / voluntarily retired / expired while in service and were eligible for family pension from 01.12.2000 to 30.11.2002, would have an increase of 6%, subject to a minimum increase of Rs.600/-in the total of pay and dearness allowance, drawn on the date of retirement. This was to be treated as personal pay.

9. It is the submission of petitioners, that Union of the Workmen and Officers raised demands for fresh wage revision in the year 1999 and 2000 and one of the demands was to introduce Special Grade Scheme in view of the large scale stagnation on the same post for long years. It is submitted, that the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board delayed the wage revision negotiation and arrived at a settlement only on 15.10.2005.

10. The Board thereafter decided vide Proceedings B.P.No.12 dated 08.02.2006 to introduce a Special Grade Scheme, pursuant to the settlement arrived at under Section 12(3) of the Act. The said scheme was kept in abeyance in view of the objection by the Union and it was finally introduced on 05.04.2007.

11. The Special Grade Scheme was introduced by the Board, with the following modifications:

"i) The persons, who have relinquished their rights for promotion permanently on or after 15.10.2005 need not be considered for Special Grade. For persons, who have relinquished their rights for promotion temporarily, such temporary period of relinquishment shall not be taken into account for calculation of 20 years period.

ii) In respect of persons, undergoing punishment on the date of completion of 20 years of service in one and the same post, the Special Grade shall be allowed only on the date of completion of the punishment period."

It was decided that the anomalies etc raising in implementation of scheme would be rectified under the Rules.

12. The grievance of petitioners is that in case the Board would have arrived at a settlement on wage re