Delhi HC tells AAP govt to release funds to colleges for salaries

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the AAP government to release funds to pay salaries to teachers and staff of four colleges affiliated to the Delhi directorate general of higher studies (DGHS), remarking that a major festival is round the corner and people cannot be deprived of their wages.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the AAP government to release funds to pay salaries to teachers and staff of four colleges affiliated to the Delhi directorate general of higher studies (DGHS), remarking that a major festival is round the corner and people cannot be deprived of their wages.

Delhi high court (File photo for representation)

A bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad ordered the government to release the salaries of two quarters to Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, Bhagini Nivedita College, Aditi Mahavidyalaya Women’s College and Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies.

“Delhi government without prejudice to the special audits and without prejudice to their rights and contentions, is directed to release funds for two quarters from April in favour of the four colleges on or before November 9. Immediately on receiving the funds, the colleges would release salaries to staff and teachers,” the bench said.

There was no response from the Delhi government to HT’s requests for a comment.

The judge said the money would be equivalent to what was being given in 2019 and there should not be any deduction.

The court had earlier asked the colleges to file their response to a plea filed by the teachers, seeking a direction to the institutions to release their salaries pending for the last four months.

Initially, the plea was filed against 12 colleges. The court deleted the names of eight from the memo of parties as two colleges had paid salaries till August and no employee from the rest six had approached the court.

The petition filed by eight teachers through advocate Ashok Agarwal said there other employees, teaching and non-teaching staff who also have not received salaries for May, June, July and August.

The plea said they have been writing to the Delhi government for the release of funds to enable the 12 DU colleges, funded by the government, to pay pending salaries to 1,500 teachers and non-teaching staff.

On Wednesday, the four colleges filed an affidavit in court, stating that the Delhi government subsidises them up to 100%. They said while two of them have got funds from the government till May 2020, the other two have been paid only till June and July.

The college counsels said they were facing difficulty in paying salaries as the government had not disbursed funds.

Countering the claims, the Delhi government counsel Jawahar Raja told the court that funds have been disbursed regularly. He said that the government was conducting special audit of the colleges’ accounts after it received complaints in June 2020 that the funds were being diverted for other purposes.

The government counsel said the audit of two colleges is over while another would be done by Thursday. He said the audit is over for a fourth college and funds have been released, a claim disputed by the counsel of the colleges.

To this, the court said, “Release the funds. You cannot deprive salaries to teachers. ….A major festival is round the corner and you are depriving staff of their salaries. The excesses can be settled later.”

The matter would be now heard on November 11.

Poonam Verma, principal of Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, termed the order as a relief. “It’s very unfortunate we had to go through this route for something which was a statutory obligation of the government. I wish we had not reached this level,” she said. The college had not paid its staff since June.

Manoj Sinha, president of the DU principals Association (DUPA), said, “The Delhi government should look at the spirit of the order and pay due money to all other colleges funded by them.”