New Delhi: The strike that was being planned by the employees of the Delhi Metro from tomorrow has been struck down by the High Court.
Delhi High Court restrained the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation staff from going on their proposed strike from midnight over a number of demands, including pay-scale revision at late evening hearing.
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Justice Vipin Sanghi ruled that the proposed action of the metro staff does not seem to be justified or legal.
The Delhi High Court said the 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.
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“… 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 its five-page order.
Earlier in the day, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had warned that the government would impose the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) if required to stop the 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. https://t.co/kbWtkUZvCL
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) June 29, 2018
Deputy Chief Minister Manish also called a meeting of the Metro officials to discuss the demands of the employees.