On January 16, The division bench of Supreme Court led by Justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath sought the response of the Central government and Air India Limited on an appeal against a Bombay High Court order that had held that writ petitions by employees against the airline over salary and promotion dues are not maintainable given the airline's privatisation. A bench issued the notice, but directed that the name of a former Air India chairman be deleted from the list of respondents.

The Bombay High Court had, in September, ruled that although the petitions were maintainable when they were instituted, the privatisation of Air India took it beyond the court's jurisdiction to issue a writ, order or direction to the company. The question before the High Court was whether the petitions should be decided as per facts as on the date of institution or whether events fundamentally impacting the jurisdiction of the court will render the petitions non-maintainable.

The High Court, relying on various judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts, had noted that the issue of maintainability of writ petitions owing to privatisation of a company was no longer res-integra.

While disposing of the petitions, the High Court had stated that the time of pendency of the case will not be counted for calculating limitation period in case the petitioners wished to pursue a different remedy in accordance with law. The employees then moved the Supreme Court by way of the present appeal. Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for the contesting respondents before the top court. Senior Advocate Sanjay Singhvi briefed by advocate Sandeep Deshmukh (whom the appeal was filed through) appeared for the appellants.

Case Title: RS Madireddy and anr vs Union of India and ors
 

The appearances of advocates:-

For Petitioner(s)

Mr. Sanjay Singhvi,Sr.Adv.
Mr. Sandeep Sudhakar Deshmukh, AOR
Ms. Rohina Thyuagarajan,Adv.
Ms. Shanvai Punamiya,Adv.
Mr. Nishant Sharma,Adv.

For Respondent(s)

Dr. Abhishek M Singhvi, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Amit K Mishra, Adv.
Mr. Nakul Gandhi, Adv.
Ms. Anindita Barman, Adv.
Ms. Gauri Goburdhun, Adv.
Ms. Rukhmini Bobde, Adv.
Mr. Avishkar Singhvi, Adv.
Mr. Kaustubh Chandra Seth, Adv.
Ms. Mitakshara Goyal, Adv.
Mr. Kunal Chatterji, AOR