Patna High Court. Telegraph picture
Patna, Sept. 27: Teachers of Patna University today received a much-awaited relief ahead of the festive season with the high court setting aside a government notification barring the university from making the payment of salaries from its internal resources.
The judgment would benefit around 400 teachers of various colleges and post-graduate departments of the university, which make payments to the tune of Rs 1.15 crore every month for teaching and non-teaching employees.
The human resource development (HRD) department had recently released the salaries for the months of June and July. The staff and teachers of the university have still to receive the salary for August.
Accepting the plea of Patna University Teachers’ Association (PUTA), a bench of Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh set aside the direction of the government prohibiting the university from using internal resources for making payment of salaries to employees.
The government had, in December 2009, during the tenure of K.K. Pathak as HRD secretary, issued a notification preventing the university from using internal resources for salary payments. The government had argued that internal resources should be used for development work such as construction of buildings, establishment and renovation of laboratories.
Following the government directive, the university had to rely on state grants for making salary payments. Once the grants got delayed, the salary backlog started.
Directing the university to make payments within 15 days, Patna High Court said it was expected that the government would make available the required funds to ensure month-to-month payment of salary to teachers.
The court passed the order on a petition filed by Randhir Kumar Singh, PUTA general secretary, challenging the government’s directive against releasing salaries from internal resources.
Abhinav Shrivastava, counsel for the petitioner, submitted that there was a provision in the Patna University Act which empowered the university to utilise funds or internal resources for making payment of salaries.
Randhir Singh said: “Our main ground was that teachers should be made timely payments. They must get their salary on the first day of every month. Because of the state government’s delay in sanctioning the grant to the universities, the staff do not get their salary on time whereas state government employees get timely payment on the 1st of every month.â€
The judgment could have a far reaching impact as around 8,000 teachers and 30,000 non-teaching staff of 11 universities across the state might take the shelter of the ruling.
Teachers of Patna University welcomed the decision. P.K. Poddar, dean of students’ welfare, Patna University, said it has been the long tradition of universities in Bihar to generate salaries from their internal resources.
“The teachers and non-teaching employees of university are on a par with other government employees and in no case should their salaries be stopped or delayed. The freedom of universities should not be curtailed,†he said.
Poddar said the HRD department often delays releasing salary funds.
However, once the university starts paying salaries from its internal resources, the teachers and non-teaching staff would not only get their salaries on time but the money could be easily transferred to internal resources once HRD releases the money.
HRD principal secretary Anjani Kumar Singh said the department was yet to receive the written copy of the order.
Kashi Nath, principal of Patna Science College, however, said it was unfortunate that teachers and other employees of a university have to depend on internal resources for payment of salaries.
“It is the state government’s responsibility to ensure timely and regular payment of salaries to teachers and staff. Internal resource funds should be utilised for carrying out development work of the college or university,†Nath said.
Universities raise internal resource through sale of admission forms and fees collected from students for different courses.
Source :http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100928/jsp/bihar/story_12988797.jsp