HC orders fresh PIL, inclusion of more fixed-pay employees

Gujarat High Court on Monday asked the petitioner to file a fresh Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in a case related to implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission pay scale of the employees hired on fixed payment.
The court has directed the petitioner to involve, on a larger scale, the affected employees of labour, family and industrial courts of Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Banaskantha and other places in the fresh PIL. The next hearing of the case is scheduled for May 5.
Earlier the court had pulled up SIX TP the state government for not complying with its order to increase the pay scale of the employees hired on fixed payment for certain years.
Acting on a PIL filed by a legal-aid organisation Shree Yogkshem Foundation for Human Dignity the court had asked the government to revise the pay structure of these employees as per the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission.
The petitioner had complained before the court that the fixed salary structure for employees hired on contractual basis for certain years was violative of minimum wage laws in many cases.
Accordingly, the state government assured the high court to raise the salary structure of Class IV and Class III, and set up a revision committee.
The state government improved the pay scale in April this year. However, the high court was not convinced with the efforts and observed that the revision committee revised the N E L fixed wages on the basis of recommendations made by the Fifth Pay Commission. The recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission came into effect from January 2006, but the state government chose to increase the salary not on basis of it.