Delay likely in salaries of teachers in aided schools

Mumbai: Teachers of aided schools having bank accounts in district co-operative banks may not get their November salaries on time as the Bombay high court on Thursday deferred the hearing of a bunch of petitions filed by the co-operative banks challenging RBI’s notification disallowing these banks from dealing in old Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes.

The division bench of Justice A.S. Oka and Justice A.M. Badar refused to give a hearing on these petitions saying the matter of transferring all such petitions filed across various states to one court is pending before the Supreme Court and it had not yet clarified if in such a situation the high courts can hear these petitions. It said it would not hear these petitions till the SC clarified this point.

The bench said it couldn’t hear the petitions filed by district co-operative banks on demonetisations issue or grant any relief to them, and asked the banks to get clarification from the SC on whether the high court can hear the pleas.

The issue of salary of teachers of aided schools was raised during the hearing of a bunch of petitions filed by various district co-operative banks challenging RBI’s decision to not allow them to deal in old currency notes.

“When the decision of demonetisation was taken, the district co-operative banks were allowed to exchange old currency notes which are banned and these banks have collected hundreds of crores of rupees in old Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes. However, a few days ago, the RBI issued a notification preventing these banks from dealing in these currencies owing to which these banks are unable to deposit these amounts in RBI and get the new currency notes exchanged,” argued one of the lawyers representing one of the banks.

The court was informed that hundreds of crores of these old currency notes are lying idle in these banks and the banks are unable to give new notes to their account holders. According to petitioners, there is no logic in taking such a decision and if the situation doesn’t change the banks would not be in a position to release the salary of teachers on time. The contention of the petitioners is that currently they cannot earn interest on this amount by depositing it in RBI, while they still have to pay interest to their account holders. The amount is lying in banks and even insurance companies are not insuring this amount saying they are not legal tende, they said.