Madras High Court restrains thermal power plant workers from going on strike

CHENNAI The Madras High Court on Tuesday (November 10, 2026) restrained Central Organisation of Tamil Nadu Electricity Employees, affiliated to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), from going on a strike at the State government run thermal power plants from Wednesday (November 11, 2026). Second Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and R. Rajesh Vivekananthan issued the interim injunction pursuant to an urgent public interest litigation petition filed by activist Vineeth Kumar who feared that public utilities would suffer if power generation gets disrupted due to the strike.

The judges also recorded the submission of Additional Advocate General P.V. Balasubramaniam that there was no direct employer-employee relationship between the Tamil Nadu Power Generation Corporation Limited (TNPGCL) and the workers who had been engaged for work through various contractors. Yet, the workers had raised a host of demands and threated to strike work if their demands were not met.

The Additional Advocate General said that the thermal power generation plants must keep functioning round-the-clock and that it would become very difficult to restart them if there happened to be a temporary shutdown. In his affidavit, the PIL petitioner said the workers intending to strike work had not given a 15 days notice to TNPGCL as required under law. He apprehended that the workers intending to strike work may gather outside the thermal power plants and prevent even others, who intend to work, from going inside the plant.