KOCHI: The High Court on Tuesday stayed the condition in the government’s order that mandated a declaration from government employees unwilling to contribute their one month’s salary to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF). A Division Bench comprising Justice C T Ravikumar and Justice A M Babu, however, made it clear the court’s order will not stand in the way of collecting donation or voluntary contributions made by employees.
The court issued the order on the petition filed by Kerala NGO Sangh against the Kerala Administrative Tribunal’s refusal to stay the government order directing its employees to contribute a month’s salary to the CMDRF.
“The order is compulsory in nature and the contribution will take effect from September. The contributions are being collected without the employees’ consent. Government servants affected by the flood are yet to recover from the damage and the compulsory collection of a month’s salary will add to their grievances,” said the petition.
It said the move amounted to extortion and infringed the fundamental right of government servants.
When the petition came up for hearing, Advocate General C P Sudhakara Prasad submitted the deduction would not be affected from employees who did not give a ‘letter of dissent’ till the final disposal of the original application or the interim application pending before the KAT.
Disposing of the petition, the court observed there was an element of compulsion in the government order. The court stayed the 10th stipulation in it till the final disposal of the application before KAT. It also directed the KAT to dispose of the matter within one month. The government said the procedure to deduct September’s salary of employees had been completed.