MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court is expected to give 'appropriate orders' on Tuesday to end the Seven-day long strike of the BEST buses in the city as the BEST workers' union and the Maharashtra government failed to reach an agreement before the court on Monday. Meanwhile, the MNS started agitation today to pressurise the authorities to end the strike early.

The bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice NM Jamdar, before whom the PIL seeking an end of the strike was being heard, expressed displeasure over the stand of the employee unions and said: "things cannot continue as they are".

While the state government wanted the union to end the strike and come forward for negotiations, the union continued their demands for salary hike stating that the employees of BrihanMumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking get a salary lower than that of the sweepers in the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and they would think about going back to work only if they were convinced that the authorities were going to address the issue on a priority basis.

The high power committee trying to negotiate with the employee union too submitted its report to the court today after which the court said that an appropriate order would be given tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) resorted to agitation to pressurise the government o end the strike.

MNS workers stopped work on Coastal Road at Worli in the morning, the Metro 3 work at Girgaum and also tried to disrupt services of other transport services like the Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT) plying in Mumbai.

The MNS had last week warned authorities that they would resort to agitation if the strike is allowed to linger longer.