MPs flay SC ruling on strike

Cutting across party lines, members of the Lok Sabha today criticised the Supreme Court verdict striking down the right to strike, and deman...

Cutting across party lines, members of the Lok Sabha today criticised the Supreme Court verdict striking down the right to strike, and demanded that the government either bring in a legislation making the right to strike a fundamental right or move a special leave petition (SLP) against the Apex court’s verdict.

In his reply to the calling attention motion on the issue, Minister of Personnel Suresh Pachauri said the SC verdict on the sensitive issue was ‘‘under review” and therefore it would not be ‘‘proper” to reveal the government’s future moves. He, however, read out portions of the CMP to underline the UPA Government’s commitment to protect the interests of workers.

At the prompting of Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, the minister also said the government was ‘‘open” to the idea of calling a meeting of leaders of all political parties to discuss the issue.

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Earlier, Left MPs Basudeb Acharia and Gurudas Dasgupta led the outcry against the SC ‘‘obiter dicta” against the right to strike when the apex court was dealing with a case related to the Tamil Nadu government’s action against striking government employees.

Dasgupta said when he and another trade union leader had asked former PM A.B. Vajpayee about the NDA government’s stance on the SC verdict, Vajpayee had said, ‘‘Hum bhi khush nahin hain” (we are not happy either). But the NDA government had done nothing about it. The right to strike had been gained by the working class after a struggle and it was used as a ‘‘last resort” and not ‘‘just for fun”, he added.

Although their names were not listed, several other members, including Anant Geete (Shiv Sena), Shailendra Kumar (SP), Devendra Prasad Yadav (RJD), Raghunath Jha (RJD), and V. Radhakrishnan (CPM) echoed the demand for government intervention to overturn the verdict.

The only member to take a somewhat different view on the matter was Manvendra Singh (Cong), who felt employees manning essential services such as hospitals or oil refineries should not be allowed to strike at will.

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In his reply, Pachauri said industrial workers were governed by the Industrial Disputes Act and were entitled to the right to strike; industrial workers in public utilities could go on strike after giving 14-day notice; and government employees could seek various remedies through the consultative machinery or arbitration.