HC asks North MCD Commissioner to clear arrears of staff salaries, pensions

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Tuesday asked the North MCD commissioner to make an endeavour to comply with the judicial orders to clear arrears of salaries and pension of its serving and retired staff of all categories, saying it is not acceptable that a poor employee is not paid dues.

The court also said may be the corporation needs to rationalise its staff strength and undertake a review and conduct an audit as it could be over staffed or carrying a baggage of past.

We are sure you are aware of the situation that employees not are getting their salaries. This is completely unacceptable that a poor employee is not paid salary. If somebody has to take a cut, let it start from the top. Senior officers can take 50 per cent of their salaries. Are you getting your full salary?, a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh asked North MCD Commissioner who was present in the hearing in pursuance to court's earlier direction.

The court asked the commissioner to file an affidavit in two weeks in response to a plea seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against the authorities for failure to comply with the order to pay salaries and pensions of employees and retirees and listed the matter for July 8.

The court said it has already asked the commissioner to file an affidavit disclosing the movable and non-movable assets owned by the corporation along with their estimated values, bank accounts and the amount held in these accounts as on July 1, 2021.

The court was assured by North MCD Commissioner Sanjay Goel that all efforts are being made to clear the dues of the employees and the corporation is in the process of leasing out some of its properties which have high value.

He told the court that group A officers are the last one to get their salaries and others are being paid first. Goel said currently there are 57,000 employees in the corporation and thousands have retired in past several year and no fresh recruitment is taking place, except contractual and compassionate appointments.

He said the corporation has closed so many schools due to less number of students there and merged them with other schools and they are trying to do an audit and added that immediately retrenching the staff would become a problem.

Regarding revenue generation, he said they have identified 37 high value properties and are in the process of letting out on long term lease 9 properties which could give them Rs 7-8 crore of revenue, if the COVID-19 situation improves.

The court said besides paying salaries, the corporation has other mandatory responsibilities also which also require funds and it should augment its resources to generate more revenue.