“We do not understand why the employees of MSRTC have now gone back on what they themselves wanted to consider with the government,” the bench said.
The Bombay High Court has taken a “steadfast stand” of employees of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) not calling off their strike despite full cooperation by the Maharashtra government and setting up of a panel to meet their demand for merger of MSRTC is condemned. State government.
A vacation bench of Justice SJ Kathawala and Justice SP Tawde, in its order made available late on Monday, said that the Maharashtra government complied with the demands made by the workers of MSRTC to withdraw their strike/movement.
“We do not understand why the MSRTC employees have now gone back on what they themselves wanted to consider with the government,” the bench said, adding that the state government has fully cooperated with the demands of the MSRTC workers. .
A section of MSRTC employees have not been on duty since October 28, demanding the merger of the cash-strapped corporation with the state government.
The state government had on Monday constituted a three-member committee to consider the demand of MSRTC workers to be treated as state government employees in pursuance of the HC’s orders.
A government resolution to this effect was issued on the evening of 8 November and the committee also held its first meeting.
Advocate Gunratan Sadavarte, appearing for the MSRTC activists, however, told the court on the evening of November 8 that the government proposal was not in line with the proposal issued in October 2020 in the matter of reservation related to promotion of Scheduled Castes and employees. Scheduled Tribes Category.
Mr. Sadavarte told the court that several employees of MSRTC have committed suicide and some of them in their suicide notes have blamed the Chief Minister of the state for this.
That’s why the employees are not ready to call off their strike, he said.
The HC, however, said, “We fail to understand how we do not wish to comply with the order passed by this court and insist on continuing to violate the orders of this court, the employee [of MSRTC] How will such a stubborn stand taken by the employees of MSRTC prevent their colleagues from taking the drastic step of committing suicide.” The court, in its order, said Mr. Sadavarte had on Monday assured that the workers would withdraw their strike/movement after the state government had the first meeting of the panel to form a committee and consider their demand.
The bench also observed that the minutes of the first meeting of the committee were also presented along with the proposal for constitution of the three-member committee of the state government on Monday evening.
“In the minutes of the first meeting held by the committee, it is clearly recorded that the committee has been constituted to consider the demands of the employees of MSRTC to be treated as employees of the State Government,” the court said.
The bench then directed the MSRTC to initiate appropriate proceedings and file a contempt petition against the workers who were on strike, and posted the matter for further hearing on November 10.
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