Delhi HC dismisses plea challenging merger of 4 film media units

The Delhi High Court dismissed the plea of the film division staff association challenging Cabinet decision deciding to merge four-film units; Children's Film Society (CFSI), Films Division (FD), National Film Archives of India (NFAI) and Directorate of Film Festivals with the National Films Development Corporation (NFDC) on December 23, 2020 by expanding the Memorandum of Articles taken.

The petition claimed that before taking a decision of merger of the four-film media units, neither consulted the employees association nor the senior staff members of the film media units. Even after the decision, the Union of India neither addressed the issue of transfer of employees from the four-film units to NFDC nor circulated any Scheme / Rules / Act with respect to the transfer of employees.

A bench of Justice V Kameshwar Rao while dismissed the petition on October 7, observed, "the petition is premature as merger cannot be the grievance of the petitioner and no order has been issued contrary to law, which may cause any grievance to the petitioner. The petition is dismissed."

The court while taking a decision on the plea also noted that on a specific query from the court, as to if any action has been taken, which have caused/effected their conditions of service, the answer was in the negative.

Advocate Fozia Rahman appeared for petitioner association submitted that Union of India through Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) should withhold or stay all consequential actions for the merger of the four-film media units.

In support of her submission, she had also drawn court attention to the various documents filed by her along with the writ petition.

The petition also stated that the employees are Central Government Employees governed by the Central Civil Services (CCS) Rules and Old Pension scheme as well as the new pension scheme. Whereas the employees in the NFDC work on a contractual basis and their staff structure is not comparable to any of the four film media units. This may create anomalies while transferring the employees from the four film media units to NFDC.

On the other hand, Advocate Gaurang Kanth, Central Government Standing Counsel appearing for the respondents submitted that the present petition is premature and in fact, as per the Office Memorandum now sent by learned counsel for the petitioner, it is clear that the broad parameters of the action have been taken.

That apart, a period of two years has been earmarked for implementation of the decision of the Cabinet.

The present petition, need to be rejected on this ground itself, the lawyer said.

( With inputs from ANI )

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