Jalpaiguri, Oct. 26: A high court injunction preventing a receiver?s committee from working in the closed Jogesh Chandra Tea Estate has left the residents of the garden distraught.

The committee had been taking care of the garden workers and their families after the estate was closed by the management on April 22, 2003, citing ?lawlessness by workers?.

Labourers and the garden?s union claimed the management had left dues amounting to lakhs unpaid.

The panel tried to ensure that labourers earned Rs 40 every day with around 10,000 tea leaves being plucked everyday and sold to estates in the vicinity.

Problems, however, began when the trade union leaders alleged that a section of the local administrative officials were siphoning off money by selling tea leaves at a lower rate and that the committee was violating the guidelines chalked out by the administration.

?Though the market price of every kilogram of tealeaf is around Rs 10, the committee was selling the same at Rs 7 to 8 per kg. We feel a few officials of the local administration tried to mint money and had worked with vested interests to exploit the workers,? said Samir Roy, the convener of Defence Committee of Plantation Workers? Rights.

The management later filed a case at Calcutta High Court asking that the panel be barred from running the estate?s affairs. The court issued an order to this effect on October 12.

?We do not know how to earn a living for our families now,? said Bhim Chhettri, a local RSP leader and a labourer of the garden.