The petitioners’ N Janardhanan and M Muthukumar have submitted that the transport workers ignoring public welfare had resorted to a flash strike on January 4 causing grave hardship to the travelling public. Also, ignoring the High Court’s interim order restraining the transport workers, especially the drivers and conductors from taking recourse to strike, the staff continued the strike until January 11 causing losses to the tune of several crores to the transport corporation. 

Noting that the transport unions were formed only to act as per law, the plea said, if the losses incurred is borne by the government or passed on to the public through fare hike and tax, it would set a bad precedent to other government employees. 

“The government instead of taking temporary solutions, which would only trigger the employees to resort to such illegal strikes, should recover the losses owing to the illegal strike by collecting it from the persons, who participated in it,” the petitioners said the plea is set to be heard by the first bench headed by Chief Justice Indira Banerjee on Friday.