Hearing on a public interest litigation filed by the Roadways Karmchari Union, the high court has directed the Central Government to file an affidavit in the court. The division bench of chief justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice Alok Kumar Verma has set the next date of hearing on January 9.

On Friday, the Central government counsel informed that court that both the Central and State governments were supposed to file the status of assets division on December 13, 2019 but neither of the governments had done so yet. Considering this, the court directed the Centre to submit an affidavit on January 9. The union had filed the PIL stating that the government was planning to impose the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) on them which is against the rules.  The petitioner had stated that the Government has been forcing the roadways workers to go on strike. The State Government and transport corporation are neither regularising the workers, nor paying their salaries regularly, the union said, adding that the workers had not been paid their overtime for four years now. The union had reached an agreement on many occasions with the Government and the corporation regarding its demands. Despite this, the Government was prepared to impose ESMA on them.

While the State Government has to pay Rs 69 crore due to the transport corporation, the Uttar Pradesh transport corporation has to pay Rs 700 crore to the Uttarakhand transport corporation.

Stating that if the Government and corporation recover their dues, the problems of the Uttarakhand transport corporation would be resolved with the amount due from Uttar Pradesh, the union had stated that imposing ESMA on them is not justified.