Telangana HC issues notice to govt; PIL seeks appointment of chairman & members of Minimum Wages Advisory Board

Hyderabad: The division bench of Telangana High Court, compromising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N. Tukaramji . on Thursday issued notices to the chief secretary, commissioner of labour, and P Narayana, chairman, Minimum Wages Advisory Board, directing them to respond by October 7.

Chikkudu Prabhakar, counsel for the petitioner, in the WP(PIL)29/2023 filed by Madishetti Srinivas, general secretary, Telangana Region Contract Workers’ Union, informed the court that the government had issued GO 14 (Labour Employment Training and Factories LAB-I department) dated May 24, 2023, appointing Narayana as chairman and members, in sheer violation of Section 9 of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, which clearly mandates that the chairman and members should not have any affiliation to a political party. Narayana was the general secretary of the Telangana Rashtra KarmikaVibhag; he has been appointed chairman of the board.

The counsel said in the State there are lakhs of workers who are covered under the Minimum Wages Act, but the government has not taken any initiative to appoint a single woman in the board.

After hearing Prabhakar, CJ Bhuyan sought a reply from Sanjeev Kumar, Special GP attached to the Additional AG’s office on the contention raised by the petitioner’s counsel. Kumar informed the court that the GO appointing Narayana was issued in 2016 and sought some time to get instructions from the government as to whether to continue Narayana with the trade union cited.

Hearing in the case was adjourned to July 10.

HC directs CS to apprise court on appointment of chairman & members of SC,ST Commission

On Thursday the division bench, comprising CJ Bhuyan & Justice Tukaramji, directed the chief secretary to apprise the court as to by which date the government will appoint the chairman and members of the ST Commission. It adjourned the PIL to June 28. During the hearing, the CJ asked the government counsel by which date the government will take initiative in appointing the chairman and members of the commission as the posts are vacant since February 2021.