MUMBAI, July 12: The Bombay High Court is currently debating whether a private party's actions can be challenged directly in the high court, bypassing the lower courts on a petition filed by an employee against the termination of his services by a private company.A division bench of Justice B N Srikrishna and P D Upasani last week urged Chief Justice M B Shah to constitute a full bench to decide the matter as three division benches had adjudicated on similar petitions on earlier occasions. While hearing the current petition, Justice Srikrishna observed that unlike a public body, a private party could not be directly dragged to the high court as three other benches had earlier maintained that a such a distinction does not exist.As per Article 226, the high court can direct the state government/public body/corporation to perform its public duty or set aside any state action that is arbitrary, mala fide or taken without application of mind. Petitioner D S Veer Ranaji wanted to bring private companieswithin the scope of Article 226. Ranaji was a corporate legal manager in Ciba Specialities Limited. His services were terminated on June 1, 1998. In his petition Ranaji claimed he was not served a notice. The company provided two reasons for the termination - lack of confidence in Ranaji and his poor performance. Ranaji moved the high court challenging the termination under Article 226. He has raised the issue whether an employer can terminate the services of a confirmed employee by a simple termination order in violation of the Indian Contract Act and principles of natural justice.Justice Srikrishna observed that Ciba Specialities Ltd was not a public body and therefore such a writ petition could not be filed directly in the high court. However, Ciba's counsel Suresh S Pakle cited three judgments, two from the Bombay High Court and one from Madras High Court where private parties were pulled up for non-performance of contractual duty. In all three cases the petitioners chose to approach the high courtsdirectly.Senior counsel for Ciba Specialities differentiated between the two judgments stating that in these cases, the private party was performing a public duty. But a purely private company like Ciba, with no statutory obligatory duty, could not be dragged to the high court (directly), he added.During the arguments, Justice Srikrishna said if private parties were dragged to the court under Article 226, it would open up a Pandora's box. `'If such petitions were allowed, people would move high court for trivial matters like the size of a batata wada,'' he said.
