Today, the High Court of Bombay rejected several petitions filed by the employees of Air India challenging the orders of the Government refused to refer the matter to the industrial tribunal. In the matter of All India Service Engineers Association v. Union of India and Ors., the Bombay High Court held that the eviction of employees due to privatisation cannot be termed an Industrial dispute. 

“right to retain accommodation is governed by stipulations of leave and license agreement. There is a specific remedy under the PP Act. No right is created in favour of employees to seek allotment of accommodation. in these peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case as well as for other reasons which are discussed in paragraphs to follow, we are unable to hold that the dispute relating to housing is capable of being termed as the one connected with employment”, the court held.

In the said matter, several employees of the Air India filed a petition after the Central Government decided to privatise AIL. Several employees of the Company were allotted residential accommodations as per Air India Housing Allotment Rules, 2017 (Housing Rules) and after the Central Government orders letters were issued to employees for vacating the allotted accommodations.

After the failure of the conciliation proceedings between the parties., the High court permitted the members of the petitioner unions to occupy their allotted accommodation till September 24, 2022, and granted the government liberty to decide whether to refer the dispute to the Industrial Tribunal by September 15, 2022.

When Central Government refused to refer the dispute. The court held,  that no reasons were given by the Central Government and remitted the matter back to the Central Government for a fresh decision.

Later, last year in October, the Central Government again refused to make a reference to the Central Government Industrial Tribunal holding that housing is not a term of employment and therefore the issue cannot be considered an industrial dispute. This order was challenged in the present petitions.

In the Petition, it is said that housing is an integral part of employment with the respondent companies. 

During the trials, The Court noted that employees are not granted accommodation as a matter of right. The accommodation is to be given as per availability and the house rent allowance is to be stopped after allotment. The court noted that the employees are permitted to retain the accommodation during the tenure of their service and the rules make it clear that housing is a welfare function.

The court noted that a total number of flats is 3000 and only 410 employees continue to occupy accommodations out of which 238 have already submitted undertakings to vacate them. The petitioner unions are only protecting the interest of 142 employees who have not shown a willingness to vacate the accommodations, the court said.

The court further noted that none of the petitioner-unions have given any details of the exact employees on whose behalf the petitions are filed.

Thus, the court dismissed the petitions.