The Delhi High Court on Thursday pulled up the authorities for not paying salaries and pensions to employees of the civic bodies here, saying that the Delhi government and the municipal corporations “do not care about the poor employees and retired pensioners at all”.
A Bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Rekha Palli directed the Delhi government to transfer back to the civic bodies the amount recovered or adjusted from them against their outstanding loans within two weeks.
“In our view, the deduction of loan made by the Delhi government in these circumstances is not called for, particularly when the recovery of loan by the civic bodies had been in consideration for the last over three years,” the High Court said.
During the hearing, Justice Sanghi said: “I can’t tell how disgusted we are with all of you [Delhi government and civic bodies]. You are behaving completely irresponsibly and do not care about the poor employees and retired pensioners at all.”
The court also wondered why the authorities would not pay the safai karamcharis . If they do not come for work from tomorrow, let us see how your houses and hospitals are cleaned then, the Bench remarked, adding: “We are ashamed of you and your leaders... the way you are behaving.”
The court was hearing various petitions relating to non-payment of salaries of employees and pensioners by the three municipal corporations of Delhi – North, East and South. The petitioners include doctors, nurses, paramedic staff, safai karamcharis , teachers, Class-IV employees, teachers and retired staffers.
The court also questioned as to how the Delhi government had money for huge advertisements in newspapers regularly during the pandemic and warned it of an inquiry and audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
Ads during pandemic
“How much have you spent on advertisements during the pandemic... we want to know. We will order an inquiry and order by the CAG,” it said.
The court ordered the Delhi government to file an affidavit on the amount, which, according to it, is liable to be paid to the civic bodies. It also directed the corporations to file respective affidavits disclosing their expenditures since April 2020.
The court also made it clear that if the corporations fail to do so, then their chairpersons shall have to be present on the next date of hearing on February 22.
