The Madras High Court has dismissed a writ petition filed by a union of Chennai airport employees challenging the Airport Authority of India’s (AAI) decision to post them on “deemed deputation” basis with a Special Purpose Vehicle to be created under public-private partnership mode for the operation, management and development of the airport.
Justice S. Manikumar held that the Airports Authority Employees’ Union was not right in filing the writ petition challenging a specific clause in the ‘Request for Qualification (RFQ) for Operation, Management and Development of Chennai Airport’ issued by AAI on December 30 when the entire RFQ itself was already under challenge in another petition filed by the same union.
“This writ petition is superfluous and not maintainable,” the judge said and rejected to accept a request made by counsel for the union to tag the present writ petition along with the case that was filed early this year challenging the RFQ. “If such a plea is accepted, then for every clause in the RFQ, writ petitions would be filed one after another which is impermissible,” he added.
The judge pointed out the union had filed a writ petition last year challenging a RFQ issued on October 25, 2013. A single judge dismissed the petition on November 7 and the union preferred a writ appeal. In the meantime, the AAI cancelled the 2013 RFQ and issued a fresh one on December 30 for operating, managing and developing the Chennai airport at an indicative cost of Rs.492 crore.
Hence, the union filed another writ petition early this year challenging the latest RFQ on the ground that it had been issued with the aim of privatising the airport and that the move was detrimental to the interests of AAI employees. When such was the case, the petitioner could not be allowed to file a separate case challenging the same RFQ’s clause relating to deemed deputation, the judge observed.
