Srinagar, July 26: The State Road Transport Corporation authorities are discriminating in implementation of the High Court order staying the voluntary retirement of its employees, who have ‘wrongly’ been retired from their service under Golden Handshake Scheme.
 Interestingly, the Corporation has implemented the Court order for its Jammu employees while as the employees from Kashmir are yet to get the benefits.
 On October 21, 2008 the SRTC in its order number 193/JKSRTC/MD had ‘wrongly’ retired 237 employees under GHS. Subsequently, the employees challenged the order before the High Court.
 On September 16, 2009, the single bench of the High Court stayed the order and directed the Corporation that it should give all consequential benefits to employees.
 Following which on June 4, 2010 in compliance to court orders the General Manager (Administration) of JKSRTC allowed the Jammu employees to resume their duties with immediate effect.
 A delegation of employees ‘wrongly’ retired under Golden Handshake Scheme told Greater Kashmir that the Corporation was ignoring the Court orders. “Corporation had retired 237 employees under GHS. However, all ten employees from Jammu and around 24 employees from Kashmir challenged the corporation order before the Court,” they said.
 “We submitted before the court that Corporation can’t retire us forcibly as we didn’t accept the GHS,” employees from Kashmir said.
 They said, “The Managing Director of SRTC implemented the Jammu High Court order and deleted the 10 employees of Jammu from the list. However, the Kashmiri employees were not deleted from the list even after the Srinagar High Court order.”
 Height of things is that instead of implementing the order, the MD moved to the Division Bench of High Court for challenging the single bench order.
 The DB comprising chief justice Barin Ghosh and Justice Muhammad Yaqob Mir also gave the decision in favour of Kashmiri employees. “However, the MD continued to delay the implementation of the order. Seeking fresh opinions time and again from Law department it took him 18 months. Fortunately, the Law Department and the Advocate General also gave decision in our favour. But, MD is still adamant in non-implementation of the order,” they said.
 “We apprised the MD few days back about the case, but he gave cold response,” they said.
 Talking to Greater Kashmir the MD JK SRTC, J S Tandon said, “Court direction for Kashmiri employees is interim. We have been given option to challenge it. However, we are trying to settle the case. I will seek opinion from my legal counsel and decide the fate of the case.”

Lastupdate on : Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 IST