Chennai: The Madras high court heard the petition filed by one of the students of Tamil Nadu. The court refused to initiate contempt proceedings against government school teachers in the state. The teachers, who are members of Joint Action Committee of Tamil Nadu Teachers Organisation-Government Employees Organisation (JACTO-GEO), are on strike from January 22. A class XII student named Gokul had filed a petition with the court to stall the protest.

Following this, the court had given direction to the teachers to get back to classes by January 25 keeping in mind the student's welfare.

As the deadline is over, Gokul requested to initiate contempt proceedings against the teachers. To this, the court said that they could not take such an action and the government will have to undertake measures to stop teachers from continuing the strike.

Nonetheless, the state government has decided to appoint temporary teachers to schools across the state. According to TOI reports, Pradeep Yadav, the school education secretary of Tamil Nadu, directed district-level officials to appoint qualified or retired teachers on a temporary basis in the state with a sum of Rs 7,500 per month.

The JACTO-GEO members earlier had submitted a list of demands, urging the government to resolve pay arrears as per the new pay commission guidelines, sort out pay exceptions for secondary teachers and regularise jobs for part-time staff working at government schools.

On January 23, Tamil Nadu chief secretary Girija Vaidyanathan had warned government employees not to participate in the strike as that would affect the normal functioning of government offices. She also reportedly said that the strike would be a violation of the Tamil Nadu government servants’ conduct rules, and such absence would result in pay cuts for those days.