As the Diwali festival is round the corner, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the AAP government to release the remaining amount of two quarters to four Delhi University colleges, which are fully funded by it, so that the institutes can pay pending salaries to their staffers.
A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad also directed the four colleges, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, Aditi Mahavidyalaya Women's College, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies and Bhagini Nivedita College to immediately release the pending salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff, when the colleges received the funds from the Delhi government.
The court observed that as Diwali, a major festival is round the corner therefore the staff members should not be deprived of their salaries.
The high court was hearing a petition filed by Assistant Professor Udaibir Singh and other staff of different colleges of Delhi University seeking direction to the respondent colleges to pay to the petitioners' salary due from several months.
The petition filed through advocates Ashok Agarwal and Kumar Utkarsh had complained that the petitioners have not been paid due salary since May 2020 till date
The plea said that impugned actions are unjust, unfair, arbitrary, discriminatory, unethical, unconstitutional, violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India read with the provisions of Delhi University Act 1922.
It also complained the actions of non-payment of salaries are bad in law as much as same is violative of right to life as well as right to livelihood as guaranteed under Article 21 of Constitution of India.
The petitioners submitted that all respondent colleges are affiliated with the respondent Delhi University and are 100 per cent funded by government of Delhi.
( With inputs from ANI )
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