One more PIL was filed in the Telangana High Court on Friday on the ongoing strike by TSRTC employees.
The latest one was moved by professor P.L. Visheshwar Rao based on the ‘suicide note’ of a TSRTC worker P. Naresh of Mahabubabad, and prayed that the ‘inaction of State government in stopping suicides and deaths of striking TSRTC workers’ be declared illegal.
Mr. Rao, who earlier filed a PIL petition challenging the State Cabinet’s decision to privatise 5,100 permits of TSRTC, would argue the case on his own, having filed the plea as party-in-person.
The plea is likely to be heard by the HC on Monday along with a batch of other PIL and writ petitions. The petitioner also requested the HC to pronounce that the non-payment of salaries (for the period they had worked before the strike) to the TSRTC workers by the Corporation was violation of principles of natural justice and illegal. He also asked the HC to instruct the government to hold negotiations with the workers.
Observing that the right to life was a fundamental right and this was being violated by the State government by making provoking statements, Mr. Rao said 24 TSRTC workers had died of heart attack or committed suicide since the strike began on October 5. In the backdrop of the grave situation, more and more TSRTC workers were losing hope and resorting to the extreme step of ending life, the petitioner said.
Citing the ‘suicide note’ of P. Naresh, the petitioner said the worker appealed to the Chief Minister to be considerate in conceding the employees’ demands. The note said that families of TSRTC workers were unable to celebrate any festival owing to non-payment of salaries. According to the petitioner, Naresh held the CM responsible for his death and of other workers.
Citing a judgment of the Supreme Court, the petitioner said ‘non-payment of minimum wages to the workers amounted to denial of their right to live with basic human dignity’.
