HC gives 2 weeks to 5 DSGMC schools to pay salary arrears of teachers

The Delhi High Court has granted two weeks' time to five schools run by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) to pay salary arrears to its teachers, some of whom have not been paid since December last year.

A bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal said "there can be no justification for non-payment of salaries" when fees were being charged from the students.

The schools had contended that the salaries could not be paid as fee arrears from students had accumulated.

The bench rejected the contention and granted the schools two weeks' time to "positively clear and pay all the arrears" to the affected teachers.

With the direction, the court listed the matter for May 11, when the schools will have to show that they have complied with the order.

The order came on appeals filed by the teachers of the five schools located at Fateh Nagar, Tilak Nagar, Nanak Piao, Hargobind Enclave and India Gate here.

The appeals were filed against a single-judge order of the high court, which had not granted any interim relief to them and asked the Directorate of Education to decide on their representation for implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations, advocate Nikhilesh Kumar, who appeared for the teachers, said.

In the appeals, filed through Kumar, the teachers of the Fateh Nagar, Tilak Nagar and Nanak Piao schools had claimed that they were not paid salaries since December last year and Rs 15,000 were paid to them as an ad-hoc amount on April 23.

The teachers of the Hargobind Enclave school had said only the salary of March was not paid to them.

The teachers of the school at India Gate had said they had received 85 per cent of their January salary and nothing thereafter.