Madurai HC Bench summons JACTTO-GEO office-bearers

Sekaran, a lawyer from Madurai, had filed a petition against the JACTTO-GEO protests and stated that this was the reason for a lot of pending works at government offices. When Sekaran demanded interim stay for the protest, the High Court granted it. 

Despite that, protests by JACTTO-GEO members continued and hence Sekaran pleaded to take s uo motu action against the protesters for not abiding by the Court order. However, the Court refused to take the suo motu but permitted Sekaran to file contempt of court petition against JACTTO-GEO members. 

Following that Sekaran filed a petition in which he had stated that despite the court granting interim stay for the protests the government employees and teachers are protesting. Though the court order was informed to the government officials they did not abide and 74,675 officials are still protesting. 

As no petitions to challenge the interim stay was filed at High Court the protests amount to contempt of court and hence prayed the court to take legal action against the protesters. 

When the petition was heard, on Tuesday, by judges KK Sasidharan, and GR Swaminathan the PP informed that the government officials had refused to get the court notice. They directed the Chennai Police Commissioner to hand over the court orders in person to the JACTTO-GEO office-bearers and also directed the office-bearers of JACTTO-GEO, president of Government Employees Association, president of Tamil Nadu PG Teachers Association and president of Tamil Nadu Primary School Teachers association to appear in court on September 15 to give an explanation for their contempt case. 

Over 10,000 members of JACTTO-GEO, including 2,000 women, were arrested across the central district when they staged a demonstration and road block across the districts. 

The JACTTO-GEO constituents who were on an indefinite strike from September 7 demanding scrapping of the Contributory Pension Scheme and reintroduction of defined benefit pension scheme, the implementation of the pay commission recommendations, 20% interim relief and abolition of NEET staged a protest in front of the Collectorate. Meanwhile, education department officials claimed that more than 40 per cent of the teachers abstained from work on Tuesday and they will face departmental action.