Former Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court and former Bombay High Court Justice Ferdino Inacio Rebello, appointed as the mediator for the BEST and employees on Wednesday, is a Mumbaikar at heart who has experienced the BEST commute on a daily basis growing up in the maximum city.
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He holds an LLB from the Government Law College and was appointed as Chief Justice of Allahabad HC on June 26, 2010, and an additional judge at the Bombay High Court on April 15, 1996.
Now smack in the middle of a complex mediation on issues pending between the workers’ unions and BEST administration, the retired justice says the success of the proceedings will depend on “to what extent people are willing to bargain and give up their rigid stand”. Currently based in Mumbai, he said, “I grew up in Mumbai, and finished my school and part college in Mumbai, and have travelled by BEST. But this is an issue of labour and management.”
His former colleagues said if anyone could oversee such a complex labour management issue, then it is Mr. Rebello. “He is very well-versed with these kind of matters and has handled industrial disputes,” senior counsel S.U. Kamdar, former HC judge and a colleague of Mr. Rebello, said.
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Senior counsel Mihir Desai, who was appearing for the commuters in the matter, said, “Both the parties agreed on Mr. Rebello because he is a senior judge who is familiar with service and industrial law.”