The employees of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) have refused to call off the strike despite the Maharashtra government issuing a government resolution (GR) announcing formation of a special committee to look into their issue that they be treated as employees of the state government.
Advocate for the employees’ unions, Gunaratan Sadavarte, informed the Bombay High Court on Monday evening that they have decided to continue with their strike as the employees were not happy with the state government’s slow pace.
GH Hegde, the advocate for the MSRTC, said that the court should initiate suo moto (on its own) contempt proceedings against the employees for wilfully disobeying the court orders. Sadavarte, however, said that the employees were willing to go to jail but were not willing to withdraw the strike.
The HC was hearing a plea filed by MSRTC seeking that the employees be restrained from going on strike. Despite the court restraint, the employees had gone on strike from the midnight of November 3-4.
A vacation bench of Justices SJ Kathawalla and SP Tavade has reserved the order in MSRTC’s plea.
During the hearing in the morning, the HC had directed the government to issue the GR by afternoon and submit Minutes of Meeting to the court by evening.
The government complied with the order. A GR was issued announcing the committee comprising Additional Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary of the Finance Department and Additional Chief Secretary of the Transport Department. The Managing Director of MSRTC shall act as a co-ordinator and assist the above committee. He shall have no powers in the decision making, the government has said.
The HC had also directed that the committee meet all the 28 unions and representatives of the MSRTC and submit their decision/ recommendations to the Chief Minister. The HC has directed the CM to consider the recommendations and submit the same to the court with his views/ opinion.
In view of the urgency of the issue, the judges have directed that the “entire exercise shall be completed within a period of twelve weeks from today”.
