Madras High Court stays indefinite strike by TN govt employees, teachers

Hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by T Sekaran, Justices KK Sasidharan and GR Swaminathan of the High Court's Madurai bench passed an interim order staying the strike and said it should not affect health services, education and the administration.

The Joint Action Council of Government Teachers and Employees Organisations (JACTO-GEO) had given a call for the strike from today to press for their demands, including restoration of the old pension scheme.

During the hearing, the bench observed that teachers should not use strike as a tool and could press for their demands through other means.

The judges also directed office bearers of JACTO-GEO to be impleaded as respondents and ordered them to file their counter on September 14.

The petitioner had yesterday submitted that the council had claimed that 12 lakh teachers and employees would join the strike and added that the public would be affected by it.

Sekaran contended that though he had sent a representation to the chief secretary of the state seeking to prevent the employees from going on a strike and ensure smooth functioning of government offices and educational institutes, no action had been taken.

He had also alleged that the strike had been called to "threaten" the state government and to get hike their pay.

The employees were already getting adequate salary and if their pay was further hiked, the government would not be able to implement welfare programmes, the petitioner had said in the PIL.

He had said that instead of finding an alternative way to project their demands, the employees were trying to bring the functioning of the government to a halt by resorting to strike.

The petitioner had claimed that strike was not a basic right and it was against the service and conduct rules.