Patna high court relief for agitating sanitation workers

PATNA: The Patna high court has stayed the urban development and housing department ’s order to outsource the work being done by daily-wage sanitation workers across the state. This will come as a huge relief for the workers who have been protesting against the decision as well as demanding regularisation of their job.

The court also directed the department to maintain status quo. A bench of Justice Rajeev Ranjan Prasad passed the order while hearing a writ petition filed by Bihar Local Bodies Employee Federation.

The state’s standing counsel Pankaj Kumar had submitted that he was unable to argue the case as brief of the matter was not made available to him. He had urged the court that the matter be taken up for hearing on June 2 or June 3.

However, senior counsel Yogesh Chandra Verma appearing for the federation, submitted before the court that the department’s order of outsourcing work would affect about 25,000 daily-wage sanitation workers across the state and they would be removed from their jobs from June 1.

Accepting Verma’s plea, the court ordered to maintain status quo and directed the department to file a counter affidavit and not to implement its order till the next hearing on June 3.

Verma said on the basis of the Lokayukta’s order, the department had issued the order for outsourcing the work done by daily wage workers in 142 municipal bodies across the state. “The order passed by Lokayukta was beyond its jurisdiction. Court was apprised of the order too,” he said.

Verma further said that these bodies had made no regular appointments in group-D category for the past 20-25 years while the daily wagers were agitating for regularisation of their jobs.