Following judicial intervention, the protesting teachers of JACTO – GEO, have temporally suspended their state wide protests and have agreed to return to work with immediate effect by 2 pm today.
The High court bench which heard the PIL filed by one Sekharan sent summons tot the JACTO - GEO office - bearers consisting of agitating Government teachers and employees who appeared in court today and agreed to withdraw their protests and return to work with immediate effect by 2 pm today.
However court room drama ensued for a while, when two judge bench of Justice Sasidharan, and Swaminathan, took a stern view of strike by JACTO-GEO and warned that the High Court has powers to dismiss the agitating teachers from service, if they donot respect the court order to give up the protests and return to work, which had a desired effect on the leaders of the agitation.
The continuation of their strike despite the HC banning it, amounted to contempt of court, for which the judges pulled up the office bearers.
“You should have approached the court with your grievances when we ordered the ban on protests, but you didn’t do so and continued with the protest which amounted to contempt of court“ the judges observed.
Noting that the court will mediate the talks with the Tamilnadu government to resolve the issues, the judges ordered that TN Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan should appear before the court on September 21.
Following which the office bearers Subramanian, Das and Moses gave an undertaking before the High court bench, that the striking teachers and employees would suspend their protest and return to work by 2 pm today.