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Indian govt staff have no right to strike: sC

AFP, New Delhi
Indian government employees have no right to strike and no political group or trade union can ask them to stop work, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.
In a landmark ruling, the court said government employees could not say it was their fundamental legal or moral right to stop work, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency said.
"Even the trade unions, who have a guaranteed right for collective bargaining, have no right to go on strike," said the ruling by a two-judge bench.
The ruling added: "No political party or organisation can claim a right to paralyse the economic and industrial activities of a state or nation or inconvenience citizens."
"Strike results in total chaos and maladministration," the ruling said, adding there were other ways to air grievances and seek redressal.
The court was delivering its judgement on petitions filed by employees of the government of southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, who were challenging the provincial administration's power to sack them while on strike last month.
In an unprecedented move, the Tamil Nadu government sacked nearly 100,000 employees who struck work on July 1 demanding higher wages.
It promulgated the Essential Services Maintenance Act, which allows state governments to dismiss employees participating in strikes if they disrupt essential services.
The striking unions petitioned the Madras High Court to challenge the
mass dismissal but in its ruling the court backed the state government.
The workers then filed an appeal in the Supreme Court seeking the overturning of the high court's order.
At a previous hearing the court said the government "should show magnanimity and grace" in taking back the dismissed employees if they apologised for taking part in the strike. The state government then reinstated some employees.
Strikes by state and federal government workers demanding higher pay are common in India, while opposition groups frequently enforce shutdowns to protest the administration's "apathy."
Almost all federal and state government employees are mem-
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bers of trade unions which in turn are affiliated to the three main political parties, the Congress, the Hindu nationalist BJP or the Communists.
Strikes are particularly common in the southern state of Kerala and eastern state of West Bengal, where India's Communist parties have considerable influence.
Last week, life in the country's commercial capital Bombay was disrupted in a day-long strike called by Hindu rightwingers to protest the bombing of a bus by alleged Islamic extremists.
According to estimates, the stoppage resulted in losses of about one billion rupees (21 million dollars).