Kolkata, Apr 07, 2023, IANS

Kolkata, April 7 (IANS): A day after the Calcutta High Court directed the West Bengal government to hold a solution meeting with the employees agitating over non-payment of dearness allowance arrears by April 17, the joint forum -- spearheading the movement -- on Friday decided to highlight a three-point agenda for the meeting.

According to joint forum convenor Bhaskar Ghosh, the state government should first withdraw the petition it had filed at the Supreme Court challenging the verdict of a division bench of Calcutta High Court last year directing the state government to clear dearness allowance arrears.

The second point of the agenda, according to him, is that the state government should withdraw the show-cause notices that it issued to the different state government employees for participating in the strike last month.

Finally, he added, that the state government should withdraw the orders for punitive transfers to certain employees for participating in the strike.

According to him, while these three will be the principal points in the joint forum's agenda for the proposed solution meeting, they will not be moving away from two other points namely regularization of the temporary staff and filling up the vacant posts.

Meanwhile, 500 members of the joint forum will hold a two-day sit-in demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on April 10 and April 11 and try to meet President Draupadi Murmu and Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar or any one of them and highlight their points.

"Our top office-bearers will be in the national capital and they will be returning to Kolkata on April 12. So, the proposed meeting with the state government can happen only after that date," a joint forum office-bearer said.