Division bench of Hon’ble Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni refutes the BMC’s circular of May 26th regarding withdrawal of earlier exemption given to the physically challenged employees. Owing to the decision of BMC, the physically disabled employees were not paid their dues for not working during the lockdown.
It was observed: “the Corporation ought to have exempt persons with disability from attending to essential services and treat their absence as special leave without loss of pay; in other words, their absence ought to have been treated as leave simplicitor without any financial loss being caused to them”.
The matter: A PIL was filed by National Association of Blind challenging the circular issued by BMC on May 26th. The petitioner submitted that the effect of such circular would be withdrawal of pay and benefits to the affected employees leaving them totally helpless.
The petitioner referred to the case of visually impaired employee of the Corporation that he was not paid for being absent from work in the month of July 2020. Their salary slip shows “nil” and the decision of the Corporation to not pay is unreasonable.
In reply, the Corporation submitted that it will be difficult for them to pay the employees due to the financial burden wherein currently their primary goal is working for health of the people and challenged the maintainability of the PIL.
The court then ordered paying of the salaries and dues to the employees who are physically challenged.
