New Delhi, Aug 06: In a judgement of far-reaching implications, the Supreme Court in a major ruling today said the government employees have no "fundamental, legal, moral or equitable right" to go on strike and hold the society to ransom. In a 21-page judgement, the apex court held that the government employees had neither any fundamental, legal or statutory right nor moral or equitable justification to go on strike. On the question of right to strike, whether fundamental, statutory or equitable/moral right, a bench comprising Justice M B Shah and Justice A R Lakshmanan said "in our view, no such right exists with the government employees."
This ruling was given by the court while disposing of petitions pertaining to dismissal of nearly two lakh employees by Tamil Nadu government for going on strike from July 2.
Justice Shah, writing for the bench, said "law on this subject is well settled and it has been repeatedly held by this court that the employees have no fundamental right to resort to strike."
Extracting a 41-year old constitution bench judgement relating to bank employees, the bench said that the apex court had specifically held that even a very liberal interpretation of constitutional provisions "cannot lead to the conclusion that trade unions have a fundamental right to an effective collective bargaining or to strike, either as part of collective bargaining or otherwise."
Bureau Report