Heeding Madras HC advice, busmen suspend strike for a month

Top union leaders who went into a huddle on Thursday evening for several hours announced the truce. K Natarajan, Treasurer, Labour Progressive Federation (LPF), told DTNext, “Considering the court order, we have decided to suspend the strike. 

We hope that justice will be done to us and the High Court appointed arbitrator will heed our demands.” They would take further course of action after the retired judge submitted reports, he added. Earlier, the Madras High Court had on Thursday offered partial relief by appointing a retired HC judge Justice E Padmanabhan to arbitrate the difference of 0.13 multiplying factor wage hike and the date from which it should be applied.

A special bench comprising Justices S Manikumar and M Govindaraj passing interim orders on a batch of petitions from various unions granted a month’s time to the arbitrator for submission of report from the date of issuance of such notification.

However, the bench then refused to concede to the main demand of the unions to adjudicate on the legality, validity and binding nature of the alleged settlement on January 4. The bench in its order said, “Though the senior counsel for the unions requested the court to refer the correctness and validity of the alleged settlement on January 4, as one of the terms of reference, we are not inclined to accept the said request.”

The bench also held, “We fervently and sincerely hope that the customs, tradition and culture of Tamil Nadu, should be preserved and conserved, by all concerned, whatever be the difference, we wish the transport corporation employees resume duty.”