Pay UGC approved salary to readers: HC

PATNA: The Patna high court on Friday directed different universities of Bihar to pay the University Grants Commission (UGC) recommended salary structure to the readers within 15 days.

A single bench presided by Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh also directed the universities to return the salary deducted from the UGC recommended salary structure of the readers within 15 days.

The vice chancellors and the finance officers of the universities were responsible for non-payment of actual salary to the readers and for the wrong deduction from the UGC recommended salary of the readers hence they have to pay back the same to them, Justice Singh added.

Justice Singh made it clear that this order of the court is applicable in case of all the readers of different universities of Bihar whose salary had been deducted on the basis of a state government letter issued from the human resources development (HRD) department to the universities in 2008.

Taking dim view of the HRD department for issuing such a letter to the universities, the judges remarked that the officials concerned issuing such a letter to the universities seemed to have acted like illiterates in not appreciating in letter and spirit the UGC recommended salary for the readers.

In the letter to the universities, the HRD department had stated that due to some error the basic salary of unversity readers started from Rs 14,970 along with other allowances and also paid to them as well. This was challenged by the writ petitioners, Ashotosh Kumar Sinha, a reader of College of Commerce, Patna, and other readers of Magadh University, Patna University and Bhagalpur university.

Petitioners’ counsel, Raghav Prasad and others, submitted that the universities had wrongly deducted the salary of the readers up to Rs 5,000 per month with effect from January 1, 1996, on the basis of false premise of the HRD department that higher payments were made to the readers due to some error. The state government could not disregard the UGC pay to the university readers by such letter with a false claim that higher payments were made to them, the petitioner’s counsel added.

Read more: Pay UGC approved salary to readers: HC – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Pay-UGC-approved-salary-to-readers-HC/articleshow/6716100.cms#ixzz11rua8SoS