Don’t withhold government staff salary for strike: Court

The case was taken by the court based on a petition from Sekaran, who had stated that the protest by JACTTO-GEO members would affect the work of teachers and students’ studies as well. He had prayed the court to issue a stay order on the protest.

Based on the plea, the High Court had issued stay orders on September 7. Despite the stay, the protest continued and so a contempt of court petition was filed. The office bearers of JACTTO-GEO appeared in court, on September 15 and assured that the protest would be withdrawn temporarily.

Following that the court directed the Chief Secretary to appear in person. Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan appeared in court on Thursday.

In the morning, when the case was heard, there were heated arguments between the defense counsel and the Advocate General. The defense counsel argued that the expert team formed to implement the effects of contributory pension scheme, and the committee formed to implement seventh pay commission had not submitted their recommendations for long. They had been seeking time repeatedly to submit their recommendations.

Though the JACTTO-GEO members had been demanding the government to implement the seventh pay commission and to stop the new pension scheme the government did not heed to their demands for more than one year and so they had protested. Also under the contributory pension scheme instead of pension a one time settlement was promised but so far none of them had received their pension.

Advocate General, Vijayanarayan, then argued that the committee to implement the seventh pay commission would submit its report by September 30 and it would take four to five months for implementing the recommendations. Similarly the expert panel on new pension scheme had to get opinion with many people and so it might get delayed.

Defense counsel argued that under the contributory pension scheme 10 per cent of the salary is taken for pension but so far none of them had received their pension under the new scheme.

Then finally the Judges said that the committee to implement seventh pay commission should submit its report by September 30 and the state government should inform the court by October 13 the exact period of implementation of seventh pay commission.