The First Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday rapped the general secretary of the NLC Workers Progressive Union and other unions of Neyveli Lignite Corporation, for resorting to strikes despite an interim stay by the court.
The bench comprising Acting Chief Justice R K Agrawal and Justice M Sathyanarayanan, while hearing a miscellaneous petition from the trade unions seeking to vacate the interim stay granted by the Bench on July 3, told them to “first obey the court’s orders and then approach it for any relief.”
In their petition, the unions contended that the Centre’s disinvestment plan would result in the corporation losing its identity.
The petition also claimed that the writ appeal of NLC, based on which the court had granted the stay, was not maintainable as invoking the Industrial Disputes Act had been considered the only way to resolve such disputes in previous cases.