Delhi high court warns govt to release funds for muncipal bodies

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Tues-day directed the AAP government to release funds to the East and North Delhi municipal corporations to pay the salaries and pensions of all their employees, and warned of initiating contempt action against it.

A bench of chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V.K. Rao asked the Delhi government to comply with, in 10 days, its earlier order directing it to pay the amount according to the recommendations of the 4th Delhi Finance Commission (DFC).

The bench said if the government failed to comply with its April and May orders, it would ask the chief secretary and principal secretary of the department concerned to appear before it and show why contempt action be not initiated against them.

The court said it was “constrained” to pass this order as the issue concerned salaries of emplo-yees, including teachers, and pension of retired persons. It listed the matter for further hearing on September 10. It noted that the government has not yet complied with the court’s April 16, May 21 and May 25 orders and made it clear that the state had to make payments to East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) and North Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for paying salaries to employees.

Advocate Monika Arora, appearing for North MCD, told the court that the government has not complied with the court’s April order and they have not received any money to pay salaries to their employees.

Delhi government additional standing counsel Satyakam and Sanjay Ghose submitted that the government has challenged the three orders of the high court before the Supreme Court.When the bench was informed that no stay or any interim order has been passed by the apex court, it asked the government to comply with the previous orders.

“If there is no stay, you comply with the orders. We will haul you up for contempt...We want compliance of the orders or else Delhi chief secretary and principal secretary of the department conce-rned will be here,” the court said. The high court had on April 16 told the Delhi government to disburse the amounts with effect from November 1, 2017.

It had observed that desite having the funds, the Delhi government did not appear willing to implement the 4th DFC, under which the civic bodies have been allocated more funds than they were receiving at present.

On May 21, when the Delhi government sought a review of the court’s April 16 decision, the bench said there was no stay on its order and asked the state to pay within one month the amounts to EDMC and North MCD.The court was hearing a batch of writ petitions on providing adequate funds to all the local bodies, including the three municipal corporations, to enable their proper functioning.