CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday appointed former judge M Govindaraj as the mediator for resolving the tussle between the Tamil Film Producers Council and the Federation of Film Employees of South India (FEFSI) over the non-cooperation protest resorted to by the latter regarding wage revision and other issues.
Justice K Kumaresh Babu passed the orders to appoint the mediator on the petitions filed by the TFPC which had prayed for the court to issue a stay against FEFSI to hold the protests.
The judge said the mediator will take necessary action for resolving the issues between the parties in a short time.
On Monday, the court suggested appointment of the mediator and called upon both the parties to submit a list of retired judges so as to choose one for the task. Subsequently, they submitted the names before the court on Wednesday when the case came up for hearing.
Advocates G Mohana Krishnan appeared for the FEFSI and Krishna Ravindran represented the TFPC.
The judge refused to issue a direction to the FEFSI to resume work to complete the ongoing production works until the mediation is done, as sought by the counsel for TFPC.
The TFPC approached the court against the non-cooperation protest resorted to by the members of the 24 unions affiliated to FEFSI stating that the stir has stalled the ongoing production works resulting in non-completion of the production causing huge loss to the producers.
It alleged that the protest goes against the memorandum of understanding and agreements entered into by the individual unions with the producers for carrying out film production work.
However, FEFSI denied the contention and stated the MoUs and agreements entered into with the producers only in 2022 and they have lapsed in March this year.