State Gazette

When the unions moved the Madras High Court against the ordinance, which they saw as undemocratic and unconstitutional, Justice P.D. Dinakaran ordered the release of all the arrested employees and reinstatement of those suspended provided they called off the strike. But in a bizarre move, within two hours, a division bench comprising chief justice B. Subhashan Reddy and justice N. Dhinakar stayed the order "on jurisdictional issue(s)". But the division bench, too, is asking the state’s advocate-general N.R. Chandran some probing questions and is of the view that the employees’ right to report for duty was undermined by the timing of the ordinance.

By S. Anand