Delhi High Court passes order staying the retrenchment of 297 PTI employees

The Delhi High Court passed an order today staying the retrenchment of 297 PTI employees, which occurred on September 29. Justice C Hari Shankar passed the order after the Federation of PTI Employees Union filed a petition on October 9, saying the “arbitrary policy of the management didn’t follow the rules of retrenchment”.

PTI had sacked 297 out of 530 employees across 36 of its bureaus, stating that “there is no work” for them. All the retrenched employees were non-journalists—and they were largely from three departments: Transmission, IT department, and Attendee and Messenger. “Not even single leader from the Federation of PTI Employees was informed about the decision,” Sujata Mathur, General Secretary of PTI Workers Union Northern Region, had said. Even the General Secretary of the Federation, which represents all PTI employees, had not been kept in the loop.