G. JAYACHANDRAN, J.

The moot question raised in these two Writ Appeals is, “In an establishment with four registered trade unions, Whether one among the four unions, demand for change in the method of membership verification from 'check off' to 'secret ballot system' to identify which union commands the majority of workers support ?”

2. Background:

Railway Employees Cooperative Credit Society is nearly 100 years old. It is a multi-state Co-operative Society with more than 1200 employees. The Railway Employees Co-operative Bank Staff Union is presently the union recognized as majority union by the Society management. During the year 2012 dissatisfied with the functioning of the office bearers, rival union was formed in the name of Railway Employees Cooperative Society Staff Union (RECSSU). When the newly formed union requested the Society management to conduct election among trade unions to determine the relative strength and to elect representatives of the employees to the Board of Trustees of Railway Employee Cooperative Credit Society Staff Provident Fund, the request was not considered. Hence two writ petitions were filed by Railway Employees Cooperative Society Staff Union (RECSSU) for the following reliefs:-

W.P. No. 17101 of 2014 :

“A writ of mandamus directing the third respondent to conduct elections among all the trade unions existing in the third respondent society for the purpose of electing representatives of the employees to the Board of Trustees of the second respondent Fund under the supervision of the first respondent”.

W.P.No.1615 of 2015:

“A writ of mandamus directing the respondents to determine the relative strength of all the registered Trade Unions by way of secret ballot to be conducted under the overall supervision of the first respondent Commissioner of Labour/Registrar of Trade Union.”

3. For the sake of convenience, wherever necessary the Railway Employees Cooperative Credit Society is referred as “Society”, the Railway Employees Co-operative Bank Staff Union (RECBSU) as “old Union” and the Railway Employees Cooperative Society Staff Union (RECSSU) as “new union”.

4. In the writ petitions, the new union contended that, till 2011 the Society employees were represented by the old union, later, dissatisfied with the functioning of its office bearers, majority of the members left the old union and formed a new union by name Railway Employees Co-operative Society Staff Union. The new union is having about 733 members out of 1235 employees, whereas the other 3 unions have only nominal members. Therefore, their union should be recognized in the place of the old union. Since the subscription of the members are separately collected by the respective unions and not deducted directly from their salaries verification of membership strength through 'check off system' is not feasible. Therefore, representation was given to the society management to conduct secret ballot to find out the majority union. The society management did not consider the said representation. Without ascertaining the respective membership of the rival unions, the society management continue to negotiate with the old union.

5. Further the Society is exempted from EPF Act and it has its own private Provident Fund Scheme. As per the provisions of the EPF Act, in case of private EPF scheme, Board of Trustees has to be constituted, in which the recognized union has a right to nominate its representative. In case of more than one recognized unions, the employees representative has to be elected among the employees. The term of office to the present Board of Trustees of the Railway Employees Co-operative Credit Society Staff Provident Fund expired on 31.05.2014, the petitioner union, which is the union having the largest number of members, is entitled to nominate the representative to the Board of Trustees. The representation to that effect given to Regional Commissioner went in vein. To their shock, the Management of the Society in their response