HC suspends termination of 2581 Manipur govt staff

IMPHAL, March 27: The Imphal Bench of the Gauhati High Court today suspended the termination of 2581 state government employees, who were appointed after the signing of MoU between the Centre and the state government. In his order Justice JN Sharma of the High Court ruled that the petitioners should not be terminated from their respective service until the legal proceedings are disposed of. The order followed a petition jointly filed by 13 SO Grade-I of the Irrigation and Flood Control Department. The High Court issued rules and summoned all the relevant documents of appointments of the employees. Following a Cabinet decision on March 7 this year the Principal Secretary (Finance) Chibber issued an order terminating all the appointments made on direct recruitments, part time, adhoc, substitute, casual basis etc., the notification was issued on March 19. The Cabinet decided to axe all the appointments following a directive from the Centre. The appointments were made after the signing of MoU on April 19 1999, which said that fresh recruitments should be banned. It may be noted here that following a directive of the Court the state Government regularized 31 posts including SO Grade-I in the IFCD on December 6, 1999. Meanwhile the All Manipur Trade Unions Council has asked the state government to review its earlier decision to retrench more than 25000 employees. In a hard-hitting statement the AMTUC today stated that it would be wrong for the Government to merely victimize the employees and said that similar actions should also be initiated against the Administrative department and the subordinate departments concerned. The statement said it would be in the fitness of things if actions are also initiated against high ranking officials and authority concerned for violating the MoU and not merely the hapless employees. AMTUC said if the Government is not able to penalize all those involved then it should review its earlier decision and avoid possible long drawn out legal tangle.