BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday observed that the current time was possibly the “worst” for the state transport unions to protest, and offered to hold special sittings during the summer holiday to resolve the issue.
While hearing a batch of PILs filed against the ongoing strike, a division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Suraj Govindaraj said, “We hope and trust that without compromising the demands made by the union, the employees of the four state-run transport entities come forward to operate buses immediately, so that common man does not suffer further.”
The court issued notices to the state government, state-run transport corporations, and the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation Employees League/Union.Saying that it was not commenting on the “correctness or legitimacy of demands”, the court observed that such strikes would affect the fundamental rights of citizens as the state-run services were the cheapest mode of transport. The court said that people have to report to duty, and go to vaccination centres.
“Perhaps this is possibly the worst time to take recourse to the strike, assuming the demands are legitimate,” the court noted, adjourning the hearing to Thursday.Orally observing that today is not the time to decide whether the demands are legitimate or not, the court said that employees should resume operation of buses, and added that if unions come forward, the court would hold special sittings on Monday and Tuesday to solve the issue even though it would be summer holiday for the court.
The Court noted that the state government had filed a response stating that as a result of the strike, the operations of the transport corporations have been paralysed and that even now, over half of buses are off the roads and that state has taken action against the employees’ unions.
Advocate General Prabhuling K Navadagi submitted that ESMA has been invoked against employees and that 98% of employees participated in the strike which was declared illegal by the labour court.Navadagi also submitted that the employees were demanding that they be treated as government employees but that it was unviable.