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Nearly 2,000 conservancy staff have been protesting on the roads for over 10 days in opposition to the GCC’s engagement of a personal contractor to hold out sanitary work in Zone 6 | Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam
Justice Okay. Surender deferred the listening to after Advocate General (A-G) P.S. Raman requested a while to file a recent counter affidavit. The A-G mentioned, he had made sure corrections to a counter affidavit, already served on the petitioner’s counsel, and the recent counter affidavit needed to be signed by the Corporation Commissioner.
During the preliminary arguments on Monday, there was a heated alternate of phrases, with the petitioner’s counsel stating that just about 2,000 conservancy staff had been protesting on the roads for over 10 days in opposition to the GCC’s engagement of a personal contractor to hold out sanitary work in Zone 6, whereas the civic physique continued to show a deaf ear.
Workers ‘thrown out like rubbish’
“I’m arguing a case in addition to a trigger. Two thousand persons are on the streets. They have been thrown out like rubbish. They (GCC) are treating sanitary staff like rubbish. They can’t do that to Aruthathiyar, Adi Dravidars, and ladies. It has now grow to be a battle between David and Goliath,” the petitioner’s counsel informed the court docket.
He went on to state: “We (sanitary staff) are the little folks. The Constitution is for us. Let them (GCC) serve the Constitution, not the contractors.”
Denying the fees, the A-G mentioned, the sanitary staff have been in protected arms and nothing hostile to their pursuits had occurred. He mentioned, every thing could be defined within the counter affidavit.
Denying the A-G’s declare of the sanitary staff being protected, the petitioner’s counsel insisted on issuing an interim injunction restraining the GCC from outsourcing the providers of the short-term sanitary staff, initially appointed below the National Urban Livelihood Mission and thru self-help teams, in Zone 6.
After listening to them for some time, the choose determined to grant time for submitting a recent counter affidavit and listen to the matter subsequent on Wednesday. The petitioner organisation’s president Okay. Bharathi had filed an affidavit stating its members have been serving as short-term sanitary staff in Zones 5, 6, and seven of the GCC.
Petitioner’s affidavit
The deponent claimed the GCC had no authority in anyway to outsource sanitary work to non-public contractors, and that it should be completed both via everlasting or short-term staff engaged by it immediately. He additionally contended the short-term staff had each proper to be absorbed in everlasting vacancies.
He contended that although Section 82 of the Chennai City Municipal Corporation Act of 1919 empowers the civic physique to name for tenders for execution of any work or provide of any materials or items, the time period ‘any work’ should be learn conjunctively, and never disjunctively, with the phrases ‘any materials or items.’
Further, stating that an industrial dispute had been raised with respect to outsourcing sanitary work in Zone 6 and the State authorities had referred the dispute to the Industrial Tribunal for adjudication on July 28, 2025, the deponent claimed the sanitary work couldn’t be outsourced with out the permission of the tribunal.
CJ’s Bench
In the meantime, an advocate made a point out earlier than the primary Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice Sunder Mohan concerning reported site visitors disruption being brought on because of the sanitary staff protesting outdoors the Ripon Buildings, housing the GCC head workplace.
The advocate claimed even ambulances have been slowed down on the street reverse the Corporation workplace because of the protests, and sought an early listening to of a public curiosity litigation petition to be filed by him through the course of the day. The judges agreed to listen to the matter on Tuesday (August 12).
Published – August 11, 2025 01:30 pm IST
