Show-cause notice undemocratic, says Himachal electricity board staff union
NURPUR, FEBRUARY 5
The Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Ltd (HPSEBL) Employees Union has taken a strong exception to the show-cause notice issued by the state Education Department to Varinder Chouhan, state president of Joint Employees’ Federation, for raising slogans against the government.
Kuldeep Kharwara, state president of the union who is also chief coordinator of the federation, in a statement issued here on Friday said the issuance of such notice to the employees’ leader was an attempt to suppress the voice of the unions which were supposed to raise grievances of employees. This exercise was an infringement on the rights of trade unions in the state. The notice was served to the federation leader on February 2 when a video raising slogans against the state government had gone viral in social media.
“The trade unions or employees’ unions are constituted for protecting interests of the employees and raising their voice against any government injustice and not for sycophancy of the governments,” he asserted. He demanded immediate withdrawal of the show cause notice issued by the Directorate, Education Department to the federation leader as it was totally undemocratic and unconstitutional.
Kharwara said the employees’ federation was opposing the pay scale anomalies that had cropped up after issuance of notification by the state government for the implementation of recommendations of sixth Pay Commission. The government should take steps to remove these anomalies so that employees could get genuine benefits following the recommendations of the Pay Commission in the state.
Meanwhile, Varinder Chouhan said that he had received as many as 10 such show cause notices and he had been charge-sheeted twice during the past four years just for raising the voice of employees and government justice to them.
“Most of the notices have been withdrawn without levelling any charges and charge sheets were also revoked for want of witnesses,” he said.
