Delhi High Court stays health workers’ lay off, orders probe against contractual employment
31 July 2020: Delhi High Court ordered the stay of illegal layoff of over 200 contract health workers at Lady Hardinge Hospital and ordered a probe in the matter. The Multi-Tasking Staff (MTS) at Lady Hardinge Medical College were being made to work under sham and bogus contracts for as long as 10 years. The Hospital would float new tenders every 2 years and a new contracting agency would get the contract retaining the same set of workers in order to deny them the benefits available to permanent workers.
Karnataka High Court issues warning to Namma Metro over workers’ health
21 July 2020: A division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Alok Aradhe ordered that BMRCL place on record the measures taken to protect workers from Covid-19, after its attention was drawn to the fact that 79 0f 211 workers at a residential site in Kannur in Bengaluru had tested positive. The Karnataka High Court warned that it will order the closure of Metro construction work if Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation Limited (BMRCL) neglected to take measures for workers safety.
Bombay High Court clarifies – Supreme Court order on payment of wages not valid for before the lockdown period
14 July 2020: A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Riyaz Chagla rapped the employers for non-payment of wages since May, 2019 by Premier Ltd, a Pune based heavy machinery manufacturing company.
The company challenged an order of the industrial court directing payment of a part of wages to its workers, who had not been paid since May 2019 citing the Supreme Court’s order regarding Payment of Wages based on Union Home Ministry’s order dated March 29, 2020 directing employers to pay wages to all workers even during the lockdown period. The High Court reprimanded the employers for exploiting the order of the Apex Court out of context merely to harass workers and denying them of their rightful wages stating that the order of the Supreme Court does not hold valid for wages due before the lockdown period.
National Green Tribunal orders companies to pay compensation to gas leak victims
08 July 2020: A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel has directed two companies to pay interim compensation of Rs.5 Lakh within two weeks to the victims of separate gas leak incidents in Andhra Pradesh.
In one case, two workers were killed and four hospitalised after Benzimidazole the gas leaked at Sainor Life Sciences factory in Parwada area in Visakhapatnam.
In the second incident, ammonia gas leak accident at Nandyal in Kurnool district in SPY Agro Industries on June 26 resulted in the death of one person and injured three workers.
