Point of law: Nature of dispute between the members of the petitioners association and the Railways cannot be brought within the ambit of the dispute resolution clause of the Agreement, i.e., Article 20 and hence, the members of the petitioners associations are entitled to invoke the writ jurisdiction of this Court.

JUDGMENT :

(Common Prayer: Writ Petitions filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for a Writ of Certiorarified Mandamus to call for the record on the file of the first respondent pertaining to the impugned No.2019/Catering/600/04, dated 23.02.2021 passed by the first respondent and quash the same, and consequently restore and operationlise the mobile unit catering licenses being Prepaid catering services in Rajdhani / Shatabdi / Duranto etc. and Postpaid catering services in Mail Express Trains of the members of the Petitioner Association with immediate effect on same terms and conditions as prior to COVID-19 situation, i.e., 20.03.2020 and further permit the members of the Petitioner Association to resume catering services being Prepaid catering services in Rajdhani / Shatabdi / Duranto etc and Postpaid catering services in Mail Express Trains in the Mobile Units.)

1. The order of the first respondent dated 23.02.2021 is put to challenge in both these writ petitions, while seeking for a further direction to the respondents.

2. The petitioners in both these writ petitions are the respective Associations, whose members are engaged in the business of providing catering services in the Trains as well as the other units of the Indian Railways based on the licences issued by the Railway authorities and they have been working with the Indian Railways for a fairly long period with utmost satisfaction of the Indian Railways. The members of the petitioners™ Associations are fully dependent on the catering contracts awarded by the respondents for various units and employed a several lakhs of employees in the business. The only source of their income was the revenue augmented from the contracts entered with the respondents. Due to unexpected and unpredicted situation on account of COVID, all these contracts have been suspended since 22.03.2020 resulting in serious financial crunch for the members of the petitioners associations and they have been finding it very difficult to meet their day-to-day expenses, including the payment of salaries to their employees and the cost of sustaining their business.

3. In the year 2013, the Railway Board had conceived the Standard Bid Document (in short, SBD) for provisioning of catering services on Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto Express trains and published the same on 02.01.2013. Based on the above SBD, tenders were floated inviting bids from the prospective bidders for the purpose of operation, management, supply and services of fully cooked meals, food to passengers on demand, viz., breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, tea, coffee and other beverages. As per the clauses in the SBD, the meals/food should be prepared and packed from the base kitchens set up and located at or around the originating / terminating / en-route stations on railway premises or non-Railway area authorised by the railway administration to be set up by the licensees. The food prepared has to be hygienic, packaged and transported from base kitchens to pantry cars of the trains ensuring cleanliness hygiene and non-deterioration of the quality food is supplied along with the distribution of the packaged drinking water to the passengers on board. The SBD also allowed the licensee for sale of authorized a-la-carte and other packed food items/beverages to passengers travelling on the train at tariff approved by the Railways. Therefore, it is stated that the existing contracts executed between the licencees and the second respondent (IRCTC) has a combination of both cooked as well as packed items (Ready to Eat [RTE] Meal), which includes biscuits, bread, juice, tea sachets, cold drinks, namkeen, bakery products, sweets, confectionaries, food products, etc.,

4. The Railway Board issues catering policies from time to time. Accordingly, the Railway Board issued the 2010 Catering Policy which empowered the Zonal Railways to publish tenders for various trains and other units under their jurisdiction and to award licences / con