Madras High Court restrains nurses from continuing their strike

Chennai: The Madras high court has restrained members of the Global Nurses Association of Tamil Nadu from continuing their strike until further orders.

Justice T. Raja also directed the police authorities to provide protection to the premises of Kanchi Kamakoti Child Trust Hospital and SRM Institutes for Medical Science (SRM Institute of Science and Technology) to ensure ingress and egress of patients, doctors, other staff of the hospitals with ID card, executives, ambulance and vehicles.

The judge posted after two weeks, further hearing of the petitions filed by Kanchi Kamakoti Child Trust Hospital and SRM Institutes for Medical Science, which sought to declare the strike of the Global Nurses Association of Tamil Nadu and its members from October 11 as illegal and initiate appropriate action against the association for indulging in illegal strike contrary to the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act.

The judge said the first schedule of section 2 (n) (vi) of the Industrial Disputes Act has been declared as Public Utility Services for the purposes of this Act. Admittedly, in the present case, conciliation proceedings were also pending relating to the issue for which strike notice has been given. Therefore, during the pendency of the conciliation proceedings, the prohibition contained in Clause (d) of subsection (1) of section 22 has come into operation right from the date of the notice issued by the conciliation officer on October 11. Therefore, the strike being resorted to by the members of the Global Nurses Association was prima facie illegal in view of section 24 of the ID Act, the judge added.

The judge said when the poor innocent seriously injured patients were fighting for their lives in the petitioners’ hospitals, the staff nurses, members of the Association, cannot be oblivious to the serious consequences of their strike. If the members of the association were not prohibited from going on their strike, the precious life of the patients would be put to irreparable loss and injury. Therefore, the members of the Global Nurses Association were hereby injuncted from continuing their strike until further orders, the judge added.