BENGALURU: The state government is liable to reimburse the revised minimum wages, the Karnataka High Court said while directing the Karnataka Legislative House to reconsider a claim for reimbursement of the differential wage amount of Rs 3.65 crore along with interest at the rate of 12% per annum.
Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum passed the order recently while allowing a petition by Asian Security and Personnel Arrangements, a security and manpower services agency, questioning the endorsement issued by the deputy secretary of the Karnataka Legislative House in 2024, declining to consider the petitioner’s representation.
“The state, being an instrumentality under Article 12 of the Constitution, is expected to act as a model employer and cannot take advantage of contractual rigidity to indirectly compel the violation of labour welfare statutes. Therefore, the stand taken by the state appears to be irrational, unreasonable and contrary to public policy,” the court observed.
The grievance of the petitioner was that during the subsistence of the contract, the wages payable to labourers came to be revised pursuant to the statutory notification of February 27, 2016, issued under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Therefore, the petitioner submitted representations seeking release of the differential wages amounting to Rs 3.65 crore along with interest.