The high court on Tuesday held Calcutta Tramways Company chairman Rajdeo Goala prima facie guilty of contempt of court for not carrying out its order to absorb 150 casual employees.

The division bench of Justice S.P. Talukdar and Justice Aniruddha Basu asked Goala to appear in court after 10 weeks and state why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him.

The case started in 2001 when 450 casual drivers and conductors of buses run by the CTC moved a petition stating that though they had been in service for several years, the authorities were not providing them with permanent jobs. They sought an order to the CTC to include them on its permanent staff.

In 2004, Justice Jayanta Biswas asked CTC chairman Goala to prepare a scheme for absorbing the petitioners within three months.

“Instead of carrying out the order, the CTC moved an appeal before the division bench of the then chief justice, V.S. Sirpurkar, and Justice Aniruddha Basu, challenging Justice Biswas’s order,” said the petitioners’ lawyer, Arun Maity.

In 2006, while the division bench was still hearing the appeal, Goala filed an affidavit stating that the company had absorbed 300 of the 450 petitioners.

“But the affidavit did not mention what the authorities were planning to do with the rest of the employees,” said Maity. The division bench then passed an order asking the CTC to carry out Justice Biswas’s ruling and appoint the 150 petitioners within three months.

“But the order was not carried out, forcing the petitioners to move a contempt plea against the company,” Maity said.