TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2010 (11) TMI 941
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.... 6. This Special Leave Petition has been filed against the impugned judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 9th October, 2009 passed in Writ Petition No.3059 of 1999. 7. The appellants had filed a writ petition in the High Court complaining of violation of Article 14 of the Constitution on the ground that those Typist-cum-Computer Clerks who had been appointed in the Mumbai Port Trust prior to 1.11.1996 have to work for six and half hours a day, whereas Typist-cum-Computer Clerks (like the appellants) who have been appointed after 1.11.1996 have to work for seven and half hours (excluding lunch break). This, it was alleged, violates Article 14 of Constitution. 8. The appellant no.1 is a registered Trade Union, which represents the employees of the respondent no.1 - Mumbai Port Trust, a body corporate constituted under Section 3 of the Major Port Trusts Act. The appellant nos.2 and 3 are working as Typist-cum- Computer Clerks with the respondent no.1 and were appointed to that post after 1.11.1996. The case of the appellants, in short, is that as regards the employees who were recruited as Typist-cum-Computer Clerks before 1.11.1996, their duty hours are six and half hours per day....
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....as accepted by the personnel who were appointed on indoor establishment after 1.11.1996. 10. According to the respondent no.1, since the newly recruited personnel on the indoor establishment appointed after 1.11.1996 had agreed to eight hours as their duty hours, with the retirement of personnel who were recruited before 1.11.1996 in the indoor establishment, working hours of the personnel working in the indoor establishment would uniformly be eight hours, and thus the uniformity in the working hours of the personnel working on the indoor and outdoor establishments will be brought about. It was submitted by the respondent no.1 that by adopting such practice the respondent no.1 has not violated Article 14 of the Constitution. It was also claimed that the reliance placed by the appellants on Clause 24 of the settlement dated 6th December, 1994 is misplaced because by that settlement no provision was made in relation to the duty hours. What was done by Clause 24 was that none of the clauses contained in that settlement were to be taken to have modified or cancelled any award, practice or usage, which was in existence. It was, therefore, submitted that the policy decision of the respo....
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....n following settled legal principles. However, we may also consider the case on merits. 15. From the record the following facts emerge : (i) As a matter of practice, duty hours of the personnel working on indoor establishment including typist-cum-computer clerk was seven hours, which included half an hour lunch break; (ii) The respondent-Port as a matter of policy decided to include a condition in the offer of appointment that was given to the personnel who were selected for being appointed as a typist-cum- computer clerk after1.11.1996 that they will have to work in shift of eight hours duration; (iii) They were to give their acceptance of this term, and it was only on their acceptance of the term that they were given appointment; (iv) It is an admitted position that so far as the personnel working on out door establishment of the respondent no.1 are concerned their duty hours were identical to the typist-cum-computer clerk appointed after 1.11.1996; (v) As a result of change in the policy after 1.11.1996 in the indoor establishment of the respondent-Port, there were typist-cum-computer clerks appointed before 1.11.1996 whose duty hours were seven hours and there were typist....
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.... have to be changed to meet the demands of the Trade. This is one step to provide better and cost efficient service." 19.Thus, the reason that has been given by the respondent-Port for adopting the practice of prescribing different working hours for Typist-cum-Computer Clerks recruited after 1.11.1996 is the change in the situation, change in technology, the desire to bring in uniformity in working hours of the personnel working on indoor establishment and out door establishment. It was submitted before us that the Port considered the option of increasing the duty hours of the existing personnel working at that time on the indoor establishment. However, it was thought that effecting change in that regard may involve the Port in litigation and introduction of the change may get delayed. Therefore, it was decided by the Port to change the duty hours of the personnel recruited on indoor establishment after 1.11.1996 without disturbing the duty hours of the personnel working at that time on the indoor establishment, after giving the personnel, to be newly recruited, a clear understanding that in case they accept the offer of appointment, they will have to work for eight hours and it i....
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.... SC 609 (see also Basu's `Shorter Constitution of India, fourteenth edition 2009 page 81). 22.Thus the classification would not violate the equality provision contained in Article 14 of the Constitution if it has a rational or reasonable basis. 23. However, the question remains: what is `rational' or `reasonable'? These are vague words. What may be regarded as rational or reasonable by one Judge may not be so regarded by another. This could lead to chaos in the law. 24. Should this vagueness or uncertainty be allowed to remain so that Judges may have total freedom or discretion? We think not. The law should be, as far as possible, clear and certain so that people know where they stand and conduct their affairs accordingly. Also, if total freedom is given to Judges to decide according to their own individual notions and fancies the law will run riot. 25. Hence in our opinion an attempt should be made to clarify the meaning of the words `reasonable' or `rational'. 26. Numerous decisions of this Court on Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution have no doubt held certain classifications to be reasonable while other classifications have been held to be unreasonab....
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.... Port took a policy decision to lay down a condition in the appointment orders of the personnel recruited on indoor establishment after 1.11.1996 that they will have to work for eight hours. For the purpose of classification the date 1.11.1996 was chosen, because different duty hours were to be made applicable from the one which were applicable to the existing personnel working on the indoor establishment in relation to the persons to be employed after that date. The purpose of this was to make the organization competitive and efficient. 34. For the purpose of bringing about uniformity in the working hours of the personnel working on the indoor establishment, two options were available to the Port; (i) either to take steps to bring about change in the working hours of the personnel presently working on the establishment and then apply that change to the personnel who are recruited in future, or (ii) to apply the changed practice in case of new recruits after obtaining their consent for adoption of the new practice and thus introduce the change gradually because personnel recruited before 1.11.1996 were bound to retire sooner or later with their retirement, and a day would come whe....
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....proper. In several decisions, we have held that there must be judicial restraint in such matters, vide Divisional Manager, Aravali Golf Club vs. Chander Hass (2008) 1 SCC 683. In Government of Andhra Pradesh vs. P. Laxmi Devi (2008) 4 SCC 720 the doctrine of judicial review of statutes has been discussed in great detail, and it has been observed that the judiciary must show great restraint in this connection. 40. Those who entered service after 1.11.1996 knew that they have to work for seven and half hours excluding lunch break and with open eyes they accepted the employment. Hence there is no question of violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. 41. In our opinion, fixing of hours of work, provided they do not violate any statutory provision or statutory rule, are really management functions and this Court must exercise restraint and not ordinarily interfere with such management functions. 42. Differential treatment in our opinion does not per se amount to violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. It violates Article 14 only when there is no conceivable reasonable basis for the differentiation. In the present case, as pointed out above, there is a reasonable basis and hen....
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....dia Backward Class Bank Employees Welfare Assn. 2004(2) SCC 76 (vide para 31), University Grants Commission vs. Sadhana Chaudhary 1996(10) SCC 536, etc. It follows, therefore, that even if no reason has been given in the counter-affi- davit of the Government or the executive authority as to why a particular cut-off date has been chosen, the court must still not declare that date to be arbi- trary and violative of Article 14 unless the said cut- off date leads to some blatantly capricious or outra- geous result. 9. As has been held by this Court in Ar- avali Golf Club vs. Chander Hass 2008(1) SCC 683 and in Govt. of A.P. vs. P. Laxmi Devi 2008(4) SCC 720 the court must maintain judicial restraint in matters relating to the legislative or executive do- main." 45. In our opinion, there is often a misunderstanding about Article 14 of the Constitution, and often lawyers and Judges tend to construe it in a doctrinaire and absolute sense, which may be totally impractical and make the working of the executive authorities extremely difficult if not impossible. 46. As Lord Denning observed : "This power to overturn executive decision must be exercised very carefully, because you have got....
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....scious minimization of the Judges' preferences. The Court must not embarrass the administrative authorities and must realize that administrative authorities have expertise in the field of administration while the Court does not. In the words of Chief Justice Neely, former Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals : "I have very few illusions about my own limitations as a Judge. I am not an accountant, electrical engineer, financer, banker, stockbroker or system management analyst. It is the height of folly to expect Judges intelligently to review a 5000 page record addressing the intricacies of a public utility operation. It is not the function of a Judge to act as a super board, or with the zeal of a pedantic school master substituting its judgment for that of the administrator." 51. In administrative matters the Court should, therefore, ordinarily defer to the judgment of the administrators unless the decision is clearly violative of some statute or is shockingly arbitrary. In this connection, Justice Frankfurter while Professor of Law at Harvard University wrote in `The Public and its Government' - "With the great men of the Supreme Court constitutio....