Dear Comrades,
We are writing with an appeal, and update on the legal
case. The Maruti Suzuki workers case ('State of Haryana vs Jiyalal &
Others') is going on since July 2012 through a maze of evidence-less lies and clear
pro-corporate anti-worker intent. Since 2012, 216 workers face possible
convictions by a pro-corporate system, besides the terminations (and labour
cases) of 546 permanent workers and 1800 contract workers, and a separate case
of offences against 111 more workers in Kaithal since 2013.
The date
for the Judgment from the Trial Court, the Gurgaon Additional District and
Sessions Court, has been set for 10th March
2017. We are apprehensive and have grounds to believe that it will be a
politically motivated anti-worker Judgement. The hand-shaking between the
Maruti Suzuki company management and the Police, administration, the government
and Judiciary could not be more clear as in this case. We are apprehensive
about a Pricol-type 'life sentences' and long-term convictions against hundreds
of workers and are preparing with a call for unity of all workers and all
pro-worker forces. We
appeal to you from the Provisional Working Committee, Maruti
Suzuki Workers Union to be present in the Gurgaon Sessions Court premises on
the day of the Judgement in the case on the 10th of March. We also
appeal to you to be united and take solidarity actions in support of Justice
for all Maruti Suzuki workers facing repression by the Central and State
Government and the Company.
Update on the Legal Case as it Stands during the Final
Arguments:
Context: We had 3 strikes in 2011 where
we raised voice against the system of exploitation in the factory, and had to
face continued management attacks on our Trade Union rights with complicity of
the administration. We finally formed our Union – Maruti Suzuki Workers Union,
Manesar (Reg. No.1923) on 1 March 2012. In April, we submitted their Charter of
Demands, where the Union said abolition of contract worker system as one of its
central demands, among others. This kind of assertion of our rights against
their exploitation was not being taken lightly by the Company management, as it
challenged their power and profits. They wanted to attack the Union through
their power and conspiracy, which resulted in the incident on 18 July 2012, of
a clash inside the plant and the death of an HR manager. Since then, 147
workers have been in Jail without having got bail for more than 3-and-a-half
years on charges ranging from murder, attempt to murder, rioting, looting,
setting fire to private property and various Sections of the IPC. Currently, 11
workers continue to be in jail without bail, which includes the members of the
then Union Body. 66 more workers other than the 147 have similar charges under
various non-bailable sections. Along with this criminalization of labour, 546
permanent and 1800 contract workers were terminated from their jobs, whose
labour cases are also ongoing. 2500 working class families faced constant
repression and penury on top of exploitation of the workers in the factory
which created the basis for the management-labour conflict. We have had a
movement against this regime of exploitation and repression till today.
The final legal arguments in the Maruti Suzuki workers
Trial case concluded on 18 February,
2017 with arguments by Advocates Vrinda Grover, Rebecca John and RS Cheema
against the State Prosecution. Find here some facts on the case as it stands
in the Courts:
1. It was
established during the final arguments that there is no direct evidence linking
‘murder’ or ‘setting fire’ to the factory on any worker. No prosecution witness
could establish any worker involvement in the same. Neither was any CCTV
footage produced by the Prosecution even after Defence asked for the same. The
management person
Deepak Anand from GM Vigilance who filed the FIR against the 55 Maruti workers
named therein, could not identify any worker. The witness Salil Vihari who
named the main accused Jiyalal, could not identify him.
2. On 18 July 2012, the
incident of conflict happened at 7.20pm. But Police was called by the Company
management at 11am itself, but Police was not allowed inside until the entire
incident came to a boil. It has already been said by workers that it was a
pre-planned conspiracy on behalf of the management so that a conflict is
generated and workers can be implicated on this basis. Bouncers in workers
clothes were also brought inside in the morning itself without IDs.
3. The FIR mentions
that 400–500 workers with rods, batons and sticks in hand entered the HR and
beat the management but no witness mentions these weapons. Instead all the
witness uniformly said that workers were carrying shockers and door beams –
each doorbeam and shocker weighing over 4kgs, so around 4000kgs of weapons were
supposedly recovered. On top of this, Police show that a major section of
workers took all these weapons to their respective homes and kept them under
their beds and almirahs. For another set of workers, Police showed that they
caught 20 workers simultaneously siting under a tree conveniently possessing
all these weapons.
4. Also, witnesses had said that each
manager was beaten up by 4-5 workers with these weapons with intention of
murder. The also stated that no one came to rescue them. But if this was so,
then how did they manage to rescue themselves with no serious injury? To this,
they said that the workers themselves let them off, which clearly is no
intention to murder! The witnesses testified that all of them uniformly
stopped the attacks with their left hand. In the MLC done on management
injuries show absurdities as a dental root canal as injury!
5. It has been established how
89 of the 147 workers have been arrested on the basis of names given
alphabetically by 4 contractors. None of these workers were identified. Court documents show witness Virendra alias
Rajender Yadav has named 25 workers such that all workers' names fall in the
alphabetical range of A-G. Another witness contractor Yaad Ram testified that
he saw 25 workers rioting, all of whose names fall in the next range G-P.
Witness Ashok Rana names 26 workers who were allegedly rioting whose names
range from P-S. The final witness Rakesh of Tirupati Associates who supplied
900 contract workers to MSIL testified to allegedly seeing 13 workers whose
names, continuing the alphabetic sequence, are in the range S-Y.
6. The lists of workers
arrested thus was provided by the Company to the Police, and not on the basis
of its own investigation, pointing to an active collusion between the two.
7. On ‘setting fire to
the factory’: There was no evidence whatsoever as to setting fire and
no witness could explain how the fire was lit and who did it. First, there
were contradictory statements as to where the fire was lit – in the conference
(M1) room in the first floor, or outside it, or in the ground floor. Awanish
Dev’s dead body was recovered from the M1 room, and the witnesses claimed that
the room was lit on fire from inside where fighting was taking place, but while
testifying they argued that the room caught fire from the outside.
Fire lit and burnt everything
down but the match box (a new one) was conveniently unharmed and lying there to
be discovered. This recovery of the match box itself was not immediate. At the
place of the incident, when the security on-watch, Om Prakash, went on 19th July
2012 in the morning at 6 am, to the M1 store with a photographer nothing was
recovered. Then on that very day at 12 pm FSL authority D. Sonu searched and
recovered a new match box and a door frame, and where the room was entirely
burnt there was no sign of the matches itself being lit. He neither signed the
recovery report nor did he testify in court on the recovered matches and door
beam.
On the setting of fire inside
the M1 room, of the 16 witnesses that had stated that the room was lit on fire,
and 3 witnesses took names of those who did it. None of these witnesses could
identify any worker or wrongly identified.
8. According to the
postmortem report, Awanish Dev’s death was due to asphyxiation. The injury he
had is below the knee on the right leg, which cannot lead to death which proves
that neither is there a murder case possible against the workers nor is their
intention to murder in this case. So Sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt
to murder) clearly do not hold. At max, only 2 people can cause such an injury,
while 216 workers have been accused of murder and attempt to murder.
Thus even though this is, on the face of it, pertaining to
the case on 18 July 2012 where a general manager of the company Awanish Kumar
Dev died in the conflict that erupted that day after a Dalit worker Jiyalal was
suspended from duty unilaterally when a supervisor attacked him and gave
casteist abuse. But as is evident by now, it was a conspiracy from the
management against assertion of workers for our Trade Union rights.
Even so, the considerations of the Judiciary are suspect
as is evident from one of the High Court orders in May 2013 rejecting bail said
“this is one one of the unfortunate incident that has lowered the reputation of
India in the world. Foreign direct investment is likely not to happen due to
fear of growing labour unrest”. The State has already spent crores of public
money all these years against the workers. As per RTI, the government paid Advocate KTS Tulsi R.5.5 crore
in just 2 years - s. 11
lakh per appearance - just in the Gurgaon Additional District and Sessions
Court, Mr Tulsi's three assistants Rs. 66000 for each appearance and
"clerkage" of over Rs. 1 lakh for his expenses each appearance.
If this was not enough, instead of the Public Prosecutor from the State,
Private Prosecutor from the Company, Vikas Pahwa again kept the 'last word' on
their behalf in the Sessions Court Gurgaon
during the final arguments.
Will
there be Justice for Maruti Workers?
The 147
workers who have spent over four years in Jail, and 11 who
continue to be jailed without bail since July 2012, the total implicated 216,
the 2500 families, those who have lost their family members in that course of
time or not been able to see their children grow up for those years or have not
been able to part of the joys and sorrows of their family for that time - will
there be justice?
In this industrial belt, workers struggle have happened
from Rico Gurgaon (2009) to Shriram Pistons Bhiwadi (2014) to Honda Tapukhera
(2016) and countless others against regime of exploitation on workers by the
profit-hungry MNCs. Management. In all these cases, to control the simmering
tension, there have been outright repression through terminations, violence,
murders, lathi-charges, false criminal cases and prison terms by the Police-administration-governme
On 1st March 2017, we marked 6 years of the
formation of our Union with a gate meeting in front of the factory in Manesar,
where thousands of workers and Unions participated. After this, the
company has moved a stay order against 10
terminated workers in the leadership of the Provisional Working Committee, MSWU
to stay 2kms away from the company gate. On 7th March, various Unions met in
Gurgaon and resolved to hold factory gate meetings and give warning letters to
their managements in solidarity with Jailed workers which happened on 8th
March. There is lunch and dinner Boycott in various factories on 9th March.
Hundreds of workers will gather in the Court premises at 10am and in the
afternoon on 10th March.
We
appeal to you to be united and resist this onslaught by
capitalists and the government, and stand with the workers class movement in this
crucial and decisive situation. We
appeal to you from the Provisional Working Committee, Maruti Suzuki
Workers Union to be present in the Gurgaon Sessions Court premises on the day
of the Judgement in the case on the 10th of March. We also appeal to
you to take solidarity actions in support of Justice for all Maruti Suzuki
workers facing repression by the Central and State Government and the Company.
Provisional Working Committee,
Maruti Suzuki Workers Union
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