By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Tuesday vacated its stay on Super Bazar, a cooperative society which operated the now-defunct shopping stores by the same name, from issuing notice to employees asking them not to report for duty.
A division bench of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw vacated the “ex parte interim stay” granted Oct 9.
The court refused to enter into the various controversies raised and left the same open to be urged by the respective parties before the judge who imposed the stay earlier.
The court was hearing a plea filed by Writers and Publishers Ltd., a bidder who had shown interest in reviving Super Bazar, challenging the order that asked nearly 1,000 employees not to report for duty.
The court Oct 5 stayed the decision of the company after trade union Super Bazar Karamchari Hiteshi Sangathan challenged the society’s notice.
Senior counsel C.S. Sundaram, appearing for Super Bazar, said: “The notice that asked workmen not to report for duty was in conformity with the Supreme Court order which had asked the company to pay arrears to the employees and employ them for three years.”
“This society could not be revived and, hence, the notice was justified and if there was any confusion, the union should have gone to the Supreme Court seeking clarification of the order passed Feb 26, 2009. The writ petition was not maintainable,” he said.
The union contended that “the Supreme Court wanted to revive the cooperative society on the petition of workers and it cannot be said that it wanted workmen to lose jobs after three years”.
Terming the notice illegal, the union said: “They wanted to take over the real estate of the society worth over Rs.1,000 crore and did not bother about the ramification of the decision on workmen.”
The union sought the quashing of the notice and a direction to protect the livelihood of the employees.
The Supreme Court in 2009 accepted the bid of Writers and Publishers Ltd. for reviving the society.