Manipur High Court: In a case wherein the petition was filed for directing the State (‘Respondent’) to release the salaries payable to the petitioners along with interest w.e.f. the date of their engagement till the shutdown of the said office w.e.f. February 2020, a Single Judge Bench of Ahanthembimol Singh, J. opined that the respondents withheld the entire salary due payable to the petitioners without any authority of law and in complete violation of the constitutional provisions under Articles 21 and 300-A of the Constitution of India, therefore, the Court held that the petitioners were not only entitled to get their salaries due payable to them for the period w.e.f. the date of their engagement till the month of February 2020 but they were also entitled to get interest for the delay in payment of their salaries.
Background
The petitioners were engaged on a contract basis in the Office of the Passenger Reservation System (“PRS”) and after their engagement, the petitioners discharged their official duties sincerely and without any break until they were prevented from attending office due to Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. The grievance of the petitioners was that even though their services were utilized by the authorities, their monthly salaries were not paid to them from the date of their engagement till the shutdown of their office in February 2020 without any valid and justifiable reason.
Submissions on behalf of the Petitioners
It was submitted that the authorities withheld the salaries due payable from the date of their engagement till the date of shutdown of their office in a most arbitrary, illegal, and inhuman manner thereby contravening their rights guaranteed under Articles 21 and 300-A of the Constitution of India. Further, it was submitted that the petitioners were entitled to get their salaries till the date their office was shut down and specially when the petitioners were made to work beyond the age of superannuation and no order effecting termination of their service had been issued.
Moreover, the petitioners had been denied their salaries since their engagement for more than 10 years and thus they had been subjected to harassment and that the petitioners had been made to suffer grievous financial crises throughout their service period since their engagement till date and their rights to earn livelihood had been denied. Therefore, they were entitled to get their salaries due payable to them along with interest for the delay in payment of their salaries.
Submissions on behalf of the Respondents
It was submitted that the salary components and all other outstanding/anticipated expenditures pertaining to operation and maintenance of the PRS was booked under the 4% commission on sale proceeds receivable from the railway and in 2012, five contractual staff misappropriated money for sale of railway tickets. Therefore, the Government also approved shutting down the PRS Officers as the Transport Department was not able to sustain the PRS Offices.
It was also submitted that the current available PO charges were not sufficient to pay the outstanding salaries of all the PRS staff and, the Transport Department never intended to withhold the salary of the PRS staff and that the registration of vigilance case against the defaulting staff for misappropriation of Government money led to the delay in payment of salary of the petitioners and other PRS staff. Moreover, the retirement of Government servant or employee or staff on ad-hoc or contract basis could not be allowed to continue in their service beyond the age of their superannuation and therefore, the petitioners were entitled to get their salaries only up to the date of their superannuation and not up to the date of shutdown of their office.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court noted that the petitioners were not given their salary during the entire period of their contract service only on account of paucity of fund and the only exception taken by the respondents was that the petitioners were only entitled to get their salary w.e.f. the date of their engagement till the date of their attaining the age of superannuation. The Court opined that as the authorities utilized the service of the petitioners till the shutdown of their office w.e.f. February 2020, therefore, the stand taken by the respondents that the petitioners were entitled to get their salary only for the period, w.e.f. the date of their engagement till the date they attained their age of superannuation, could not be considered.
The Court further opined that the respondents withheld the entire salary due payable to the petitioners without any authority of law and in complete violation of the constitutional provisions under Articles 21 and 300-A of the Constitution of India. Moreover, the respondents had totally failed to discharge their obligations and they could not wash off their hands of the responsibility and liability of paying monthly salary to the petitioners on account of paucity of fund and that paucity of fund could not be a ground for denying payment of salaries to the petitioners, which was the basis of subsistence for them and their dependents.
The Court also opined that as the petitioners had been denied their salaries since their engagement for more than ten years and had been made to suffer grievous financial crisis throughout their service period since their engagement on contract basis till date and as their right to earn livelihood had been denied by the respondents without any authority of law, therefore, the Court held that the petitioners were not only entitled to get their salaries due payable to them for the period w.e.f. the date of their engagement till February 2020 but they were also entitled to get interest for the delay in payment of their salaries.
The Court considered Shiv Shankar Mishra v. State of U.P., 2015 SCC OnLine All 899 and State of Andhra Pradesh v. Dinavahi Lakshmi Kameswari, (2021) 11 SCC 543 and allowed the present petition with the following direction:
1. The State was directed to release the salaries due payable to the petitioners for the period w.e.f. the date of their engagement till February 2020 along with the interest at the rate of 6% per annum from the date the monthly salary of the petitioners was due payable till the actual payment of the entire amount.
[Wahengbam Prava Devi v. State of Manipur, 2023 SCC OnLine Mani 76, decided on 17-2-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioners: Advocate Ph. Sarvodaya Lakshmi;
For the Respondents: Advocate A. Vashum.
*Judgment authored by: Justice Ahanthembimol Singh.
*Simranjeet Kaur, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.