Delhi Municipal Workers' Union on Tuesday sought the intervention of the Delhi High Court over not clearing salary of Class-III employees of the Engineering Department and other departments of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC).
A Division Bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan transferred the matter to another bench, which was hearing similar pleas related to pending salaries of municipal employees.
The petition, which was filed by Delhi Municipal Workers' Union through advocate Bankey Bihari, will now be heard next week.
The Union has urged the Delhi High Court to issue a direction to NDMC to disburse the arrears of unpaid salary starting from the month of May up-to-date to all the Class-III employees of the Engineering Department and other departments of the NDMC.
The Union said that its petition has raised the grievances of about 30 thousand Class-III employees serving in the Engineering Department and other departments of the North DMC, who have not been paid their salary since May.
The petitioner has also raised up the grievances of about 40,000 employees retired from their respective services with the corporation who have not been paid pension since May.
The Union further submitted that non-payment of lawful salary to the employees of the Corporation would fall within the definition of 'forced labour' which is prohibited by Article 23 of the Constitution of India.
It further submitted that Article 21 of the Constitution of India would include rights to food, shelter and other basic amenities which cannot be cherished by the employees of the Corporation and their dependents in the event of non-payment of salary to the concerned employees.
Therefore, the Union has urged the Delhi High Court to issue a direction to North DMC to disburse the arrears of unpaid pension starting from May 2020 up-to-date to all the retired Class-III employees of the Engineering Department and other departments of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation.
It has also sought to direct the respondent to pay the current salary to all these employees on a month-to-month basis, regularly without any break and also pay the current pension to all the retired Class-III employees.
The Union has also sought a direction to the concerned department to pay interest on delayed payment of the arrears of salary and pension at the current market rate till the date of its actual payment to all concerned Class-III serving in various NDMC departments.
( With inputs from ANI )
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