Jagran Bureau, New Delhi . The Supreme Court has sought a response from the Central Government on the government directive to pay full wages to employees during the lockdown. However, the court has not issued any formal notice to the Center on the petition. The case will be heard again after two weeks.
The Ludhiana Hand Tools Association and some others have filed a petition challenging the central government’s order of 29 March to give full salary to employees during lockdown to private companies and demanded the court to quash the order.
On Monday, a bench headed by Justice NV Ramana asked the government to respond to the matter in two weeks without issuing a formal notice to the government on three petitions filed in this regard and postponed the hearing for two weeks.
The Ludhiana Hand Tools Association has said in the petition that under the Disaster Management Act, it is wrong to issue orders for payment of full wages to private establishments by the Central Government. This leads to violation of the rights of doing business and equality in the constitution. In the petition, challenging the validity of Section 10 (2) (I) of the Disaster Management Act 2005, the court has sought the cancellation of the order of the Central Government on March 29. In this order, the central government has ordered private establishments to pay full wages to employees during the lockdown.
In this order issued from the Ministry of Home Affairs on 29 March, all the states and union territories were also asked to take action against those who violated the order. Subsequently, on 30 March, the Ministry of Labor and Employment issued an advisory to all Regional Labor Commissioners that all the employees of the establishments closed due to the lockdown would be considered on duty during this period. And all private and government establishments are advised not to remove their employees from their jobs nor to deduct their salaries. Not only this, temporary and contract employees were also considered involved in this.
The petition said that the previous order of the Government of 29 March violates Articles 14 and 19 (1) (g) of equality, freedom of doing business, obtained under the Constitution. Also, this order violates Articles 265 and 300A of the Constitution. The petition has raised the legal question whether the Disaster Management Act 2005 empowers the Central Government to order private establishments to pay their employees full wages during a disaster. Did the government not arbitrarily issue this order without considering the classification. Can the Government of India order a full pay to private establishments under the Disaster Management Act? Whereas the Industrial Dispute Act 1948 has made a provision for giving 50 percent salary on a similar situation.
Did the government not issue this order in haste without considering the economic situation during the lockdown of private establishments. Can the government put the entire burden on the employers keeping in view the interests of the working class, while the employers are also incurring huge losses due to the lockdown. Many more legal grounds have been given in the petition.
Apart from this, 11 small companies have filed a new petition on Monday challenging the order for full pay. Also asked for permission to reduce salary. However, this petition has not yet come up for hearing.
