When will you pay disengaged Assembly fellows their salary? HC asks Delhi govt

The HC, thereafter, asked the counsel to get instructions on when the petitioner fellows and other similarly placed assistants and consultants would get their salaries. The matter is next listed on November 10.

The HC was hearing a plea by 17 disengaged research fellows seeking restoration of an earlier order, directing the continuation of their services and payment of salaries for the period they had worked. The plea was filed in a pending matter, against an August 9 order, of the Delhi Assembly Secretariat disengaging services of fellows to the Delhi Assembly Research Centre (DARC) programme at the legislative assembly.

On September 21, Justice Prasad, in an interim order, had directed that services of the fellows should not be discontinued and stipend be paid to them till December 6. Thereafter, on October 3, the HC lifted the stay on their disengagement, noting that the issue was specifically argued before the Supreme Court, in a plea challenging the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023, with regard to control over services in Delhi.

The court had observed that the July 5 letter, in which the Lieutenant Governor had disengaged the Fellows/Associate Fellows of the DARC, was “specifically challenged” by the Delhi government before the apex court in an application filed in the services ordinance matter.

The HC had then said that SC had declined to stay the termination and propriety demanded that the HC ought not to have passed the interim order. Last week, the petitioner’s counsel argued that the SC had clarified that this issue was not considered by them and hence, the interim order be reinstated.

In their main plea before the HC, the petitioner fellows have stated that the July 5 letter of the Services department directed that their engagement, for which the L-G’s prior approval was not sought, be discontinued and disbursement of salary to them stopped.

The fellows learned that the Finance department had issued a letter on July 6 directing that the salaries of the fellows be stopped.

Thereafter, even though the order was kept in abeyance, the fellows had not been paid their stipends for June, July, and until August 9, when the secretariat discontinued their engagement with immediate effect, it added.