Bringing cheer to around 40,000 members of the Municipal Mazdoor Union (MMU),a vacation bench of the Bombay High Court asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to pay the workers ex gratia bonus of Rs 7,500 each. The civic body had issued a circular on October 15 stating the employees who went on a strike on September 19-20 will not be eligible for ex gratia for the year 2010-11. The corporation had decided that it would not pay Diwali bonus to members of the union who participated in the strike for the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission. In an interim order,a single judge of the High Court had upheld the decision which the MMU is now contesting before the Division Bench. Justice S J Kathawalla and Justice A M Thipsay told the corporation and it should not make the dispute an ego issue and let the workers celebrate Diwali. Since the dispute is still pending before a single judge,the court said that if the final order in the case is in the BMCs favour,it can deduct the ex gratia payment from the salaries for the month of December to be paid to the workers. MMU had approached the industrial court challenging the BMCs circular. It had directed BMC to pay the ex gratia amount to all employees. The corporation had then contested this order before the single HC Judge,who reversed the order.
