JACTTO-GEO puts off strike till Dec 10

The JACTTO-GEO on Saturday announced that it would go ahead with its indefinite strike from December 4 as planned, to press their seven point charter of demands, including the reversal to the old pension scheme and the scrapping of the contributory pension scheme, removal of irregularities in pay for middle grade teachers, and payment of arrears for the past 21 months among others.

A division bench comprising Justices K K Sasidharan and G R Swaminathan, while hearing an urgent petition filed by one Loganathan demanding to stay the indefinite strike, asked the JACTTO-GEO office bearers whether they can postpone their protest till December 10, as the court would seek an explanation from the State Government about what action it had taken on their demands made earlier.

The petitioner stated that the indefinite strike would affect the coming Half-Yearly Examinations and also the ongoing relief operations in the cyclone-affected areas.

Meanwhile, Shaji Selvam, the counsel for JACTTO-GEO, contended that the State Government had constituted two committee’s to look into their demands. While the T S Sridhar committee formed to look into the demand for restoring the old pension submitted its report, the status of another committee was still not known.

“The government has not fulfilled their demands. However the government employees were undertaking the relief works in cyclone-affected areas and even announced their one day salary amounting to Rs 100 crore as donation for the affected people,” he said.

The judges directed the Chief Secretary and Home Secretary to file their report before the court about what action the government had taken on the demands of the government employees and posted the case for next hearing on December 10.

M Subramanian, coordinator, JACTTO-GEO, said he had hoped that the bench would scrap the contributory pension scheme. Further course of action would be decided on December 10, Subramanian said in Madurai.