The Cabinet has cleared a draft Ordinance empowering the government for deferring six days’ salary of employees and teachers for five months to face the extraordinary fiscal crisis triggered by COVID-19.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters here on Wednesday that there was a steep fall in income and the crisis was unbearable. The decision on deferment was made to overcome the crisis. Since the High Court had pointed out that the decision was legally untenable, the Cabinet decided to recommend the Governor to promulgate an Ordinance, he said.
The Ordinance will also empower the government to impose a 30% cut in the salary, allowances and honorarium of Ministers and MLAs for a year. The draft explains that in the event of any disaster or public health emergency, it shall be competent and lawful for the government to defer up to one-fourth of the total salary of an employee in any institution owned or controlled by the government, including aided and grant-in-aid bodies.
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The High Court had said there was no sanction of law for the order to defer the salary and it amounts to deprivation of property of the employees and teachers who were affected by it. Hence, the government had to issue the Ordinance under extraordinary circumstances, it said.
Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac clarified that the government had the powers to deduct up to one-fourth of the total monthly salary of an employee for the management of the crisis that stemmed out of the public health emergency, but would strictly go by the earlier decision to defer the salary.