Mumbai: In a temporary relief to 6,000 teachers, who were not paid their salaries for the month of July, the Bombay high court directed the state to deposit the money in a common bank account for institutions through which the salaries are to be disbursed.
However, the second part of the teachers’ petition challenging the decision of the government asking them to start new accounts in Mumbai District Co-operative Bank (MDCB) remained undecided and will be heard on September 6. The aggrieved teachers had refused to start new accounts in the Mumbai bank and had demanded that their salaries be deposited in their old account in a nationalised bank.
A division bench of Justice Anoop Mohta and Bharati Dangre was hearing the writ petition filed by a teachers’ organisation Shikshak Bharati (SB) wherein they had complained that their salaries not being paid and seeked directions from the government to withdraw the resolution which made the MDCB, the official bank for disbursement of salaries of teachers in Mumbai.
A total of 21,000 teachers are paid salaries by the government, of which 15,000 were paid their salaries after they started the account. However, 6,000 teachers under SB refused to comply stating that the MDCB had a bad track record and they did not want to lose their hard earned money.
In light of the fact that many teachers had to pay EMIs on loans and the festive season was near, in the previous hearing last week the court had directed the state to resolve the problem at the earliest and find a way to pay the salaries of the teachers.
On Monday the court asked the state whether it had found a solution, to which the additional government pleader told the court that the state had devised a temporary scheme wherein the salaries would be transferred to the school account from the pool account where the salaries have already been deposited. The school could then transfer the salaries to the nationalised bank accounts of the teachers.
The court accepted the state’s submissions and said that with the festival season being close, the government should have an open ended approach and resolver the issue fast.
