High Court has sought a personal affidavit from the Principal Secretary Forest within three weeks for not giving information about the formation of a committee in the matter of salary of daily wage employees from the Forest Department, as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against the officers guilty of not complying with the order of December 7, 2023.
Allahabad High Court has given a big relief to the forest workers. The High Court has sought a personal affidavit from the Principal Secretary Forest within three weeks for not giving information about the formation of a committee in the salary matter of daily wage employees from the Forest Department as to why contempt proceedings should not be taken against the officers guilty of not following the order of 7 December 2023. This order has been given by Justice Prakash Padia after hearing advocate Pankaj Srivastava on the petition of Vijay Kumar Srivastava, a daily wage employee working in the Forest Department, Gorakhpur.
Advocate Pankaj Srivastava said that the government is deliberately not following the order. The Supreme Court and the High Court have given instructions, which are being disregarded. By its order dated December 7, 2023, the court had directed the state government to form a committee under the chairmanship of the Additional Chief Secretary, Forest Department and prepare a fair and transparent policy for daily wage employees within 30 days.
The court was assured by the government that the government would prepare the policy and three weeks’ time was sought to file the affidavit. Divisional Forest Officer Gorakhpur Vikas Yadav filed an affidavit and said that it would take time to prepare a policy for daily wage employees working in various departments for 10 to 20 years or more. Till then, guidelines have been issued on 24 September. Under which, on November 9, 2023, an order has been issued to give Rs 18000 per month to the employees working for the last ten years. Told that a total of 3209 such daily wage workers are working. It was instructed that everyone should be treated equally. There should be no discrimination against anyone.
The court said that nothing was told for the employees working for less than ten years, while the court had constituted a committee and sought a report in a month. After this, three weeks were taken but no information has been given about the formation of the committee. This is a disregard of the court order. The order of December 7, 2023 was not followed. A personal affidavit has been sought from the Principal Secretary on this.
