HC upholds ‘constitutional right’ of employees to timely salaries

In a 21-page order passed by the division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Ajay Mohan Goel, the court said, “In case of emoluments not being disbursed on schedule, except otherwise being withheld as per law, the state and its instrumentalities shall be liable to compensate the employees by paying statutory interest, or the existing rate for saving bank deposit account provided by the SBI, whichever is higher”.
The order came on a PIL which the court had taken up suo motu after it was alarmed by the report of denial of salaries for seven months to the nurses.

The court, passing a series of directions to the chief secretary who has been asked to file an affidavit within four weeks, asked for creating a mechanism to enable the employees to vent their grievances of non-disbursement of dues and admissible wages/salaries/emoluments.

As one such mechanism, the court suggested setting up a web portal at the level of principal secretary/secretary of the department(s) concerned, where the employees can lodge their grievances/complaints.

The court also said that any government inquiry to ascertain the omission on the part of the person (employee) concerned shall be completed within a period of 30 days.

Earlier during the hearing, the state government had submitted that salaries could not be disbursed for want of grant-in-aid under the appropriate Head of Account but now a budgetary allocation of a sum of Rs 1.75 crore, including grant-in-aid salary, was made.