The Kerala High Court on Thursday expressed its displeasure over non-payment of last month’s salary to the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) employees and directed the KSRTC Managing Director to appear before the court online if salaries are not paid by July 20.
Justice Devan Ramachandran while hearing petitions on the delay in payment of salaries said that cases had been pending before the court for more than a year now. Several suggestions had been made in various interim orders of the court to improve the situation, but “which appear to have been, at least prima facie, disregarded by the stakeholders.”
The court added that one failed to understand why the KSRTC was being pushed into this kind of financial distress when its employees were working at more than satisfactory levels, which was evident from the income generated, stated to be over ₹220 crore a month now.
The court observed that it was obvious that the KSRTC was burdened by its prior commitments and that money was being used to honour them, before the salaries were paid. This, if true, was contrary to the spirit of the order issued on June 21, 2022. The net effect was that the employees of the KSRTC were working hard, but they were left without being paid salary.
The court said it failed to understand how long this could go on, particularly when the government appeared to be taking the stand that it could not take full responsibility for the corporation. The situation could not be allowed to continue like this, the court said.
The counsel for the KSRTC submitted that the corporation had sought assistance from the government and an amount of ₹30 crore was likely to be credited on Thursday. This amount would be disbursed to the employees towards their salary without any delay.
The court adjourned to July 20 the hearing in the case.
