New Delhi
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the Delhi government’s education and urban development departments to file separate status reports on the amount due or payable for the financial year 2020-21, including June 2020, to the North Delhi Municipal Corporation for the payment of salaries to 9,000 teachers working in the civic body’s schools. The court was hearing a plea which it had initiated itself over the non-payment of salaries to the teachers.
The court asked the corporation to release the salaries of teachers for March, if they have received Rs 49.16 crore from the Delhi government for the month of June as stated by its additional standing counsel Avinish Ahlawat.
A bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad asked the corporation to also file a status report with a tabulated statement indicating the amount required to disburse its share of salaries to teachers in the year 2021, the money released till the quarter ending June 2020 and the unpaid amount.
The court on Friday had criticised the civic body over the non-payment of salaries to 9,000 teachers since March this year. The court, while hearing an appeal by the Akhil Dilli Prathmik Sikshak Sangh, had termed it as “a sorry state of affairs” and equated teachers to Covid-19 warriors as they have been put on Covid duty also.
On Tuesday, Avinish Ahlawat told the court that the Delhi government had sanctioned a sum of Rs 49.17 crore for April to the North DMC as grant-in-aid to disburse salaries to civic body teachers for April 2020, under the Scheme of Primary Education, for the year 2020-21.
{{/usCountry}}On Tuesday, Avinish Ahlawat told the court that the Delhi government had sanctioned a sum of Rs 49.17 crore for April to the North DMC as grant-in-aid to disburse salaries to civic body teachers for April 2020, under the Scheme of Primary Education, for the year 2020-21.
{{/usCountry}}Ahlawat said as far as payment for May 2020 is concerned, the finance department has sanctioned Rs.49.17 crore to the North DMC vide an order dated May 1. She said the release order for a sum of Rs 49.16 crore (for June) was issued only on Monday and in all probability, the amount would have been remitted into the civic body’s account.
Appearing for the civic body, senior advocate HS Phoolka said they will have to ascertain if the sum had been received by the corporation. He said the Delhi government had not released the amount for June.
Phoolka said salaries for 9,000 teachers employed by the north corporation was released in February 2020 but for March 2020, only 5,400 teachers on Covid-19 duties had been paid because of paucity of funds
He said salaries of the remaining 3,600 teachers had not been released for March 2020 and no salary had been paid to any teacher for three months, from April 2020 till June 2020.
Following this, the court said if the sum of Rs.49.16 crore for June has been received, then the unpaid salaries of the teachers for the month of March 2020 should be released “forthwith”.
The Delhi government did not respond to queries for a comment.
The matter would be now heard on July 9.