HC restrains DMRC staff from going on strike
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday restrained the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) staff from going on their proposed strike from Saturday midnight over their unfulfilled demands, including a pay-scale revision.
"We will follow the court's order and not go on a strike. However, we will continue our sit-in protest and wear black armbands while working," said the DMRC employee union.
After an urgent hearing, Justice Vipin Sanghi passed the interim order holding that prima facie, the proposed action of the Metro staff does not seem to be justified or legal.
The court said that DMRC is running a public utility service, which caters to around 25 lakh citizens of Delhi on a daily basis, and sufficient notice has not been given to DMRC and the conciliation proceedings are still in progress.
DMRC moved the urgent petition which was mentioned before Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal, who assigned it for hearing before Justice Sanghi.
"I am inclined to grant ad-interim relief as sought in the application. Accordingly, the respondents (employees) are restrained from going on strike on June 30 or till further orders in the matter," the judge said in his five-page order.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that his government might impose the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) to ensure smooth functioning of the Delhi Metro, even as he appealed to the employees to not resort to the strike.
ESMA is often imposed by authorities to ensure smooth functioning of the services, when faced with a situation of strike.
"Whereas all genuine demands of Metro employees shud be met, strike wud cause inconvenience to lakhs of people. Strike shud not take place. Whereas govt imposing ESMA as last resort, I wud urge employees to not resort to strike (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted on Friday.
Earlier in the day, two rounds of talks between the DMRC higher authorities and representatives of the Metro Staff Council had 'failed', which could have resulted in the strike taking place and crippling services severely.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also tweeted, "Have called an urgent meeting of Metro officers to discuss the demands of employees. Also file related to ESMA being sent for concurrence of Lieutenant Governor."
There are nearly 12,000 people employed with the Delhi Metro, with the non-executive staffers accounting for about 9,000.
Some of the non-executive staff of DMRC have been demonstrating at a few metro stations, including Yamuna Bank and Shahdara, since June 19 in support of their eight-point demand.
The non-executive workforce includes train operators, station controllers, operations and maintenance staff and technicians, and form a major component in the operation of the rapid rail network.
