T rides on ordinance to defer staff pay, pensions

Koride.Mahesh@timesgroup.com

Hyderabad:  18.06.2020

The Telangana government on Tuesday night hurriedly promulgated an ordinance which allowed it to defer salaries and pensions of its employees without getting into legal tangles.

The Telangana Disaster and Public Health Emergency (special provisions) Ordinance,2020, allowed the K Chandrasekhar Rao government to even defer payments to institutions in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the state’s reduced revenues.

Telangana high court had on Monday pulled up the state for deferring pensions after a number of employees challenged the decision to impose salary and pension cuts for the past three months. The judges said that even the Disaster Management Act did not give the government such powers.

Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan issued the ordinance through a gazette notification that came into effect from March 24, the day the national Covid-19 lockdown was imposed. The gazette notification gives the state government immunity from legal scrutiny.

Govt: Will table ordinance in assembly during next session

To make special provision for the deferment of any payment in party, due and payable to any person, institution and any pay, pension and remuneration in part, to any employees, any pensioner and any other person, in the event of disaster and public health emergency in the state and for the matters connected therewith or incidental thereto,” reads the ordinance.

In the ordinance, the government has even defined disaster, employee, pay, pension and public health emergency empowering the state government to defer payment in the event of any outbreak of any contagious disease. The government has been imposing a cut in the salaries of all employees except some departments such as police, doctors and sanitation workers, public representatives and pensioners.

While 50% salaries deferment is being imposed for government employees, All India Service officers’ salaries have been cut by 60%. Similarly, while elected representatives including CM, ministers, MLAs, MLCs and even local bodies representatives such as mayors have seen a 75% cut.

The government said the ordinance would be tabled in assembly during next session or within six months from the date of ordinance.

HC allows petitioners to amend prayers: The Telangana government, through advocate general BS Prasad, on Wednesday informed a high court bench of Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy that it had promulgated an ordinance enabling it to defer a certain portion of salaries of its employees and pensioners in the current pandemic. Advocate Chikkudu Prabhakar and others representing several petitioners urged the court to allow them to amend their prayers. The bench allowed them to amend their prayers and posted the case to June 24.

› HC allows petitioners to amend their plea