Hearing on the legal issues of
the Majithia Contempt case started today in the Supreme Court. It remained
incomplete and will continue on the next Tuesday, 17th January. From the side
of the employees Shri Colin Gonsalves, Senior Advocate, submitted that Section
20j of the Wage Board Award was being wrongly used by the newspaper owners to
deny the benefits of the Award to employees. It was, in fact, incorporated to
help those employees, who were being paid more than what the Wage Board had
recommended. Therefore, ‘Section 20j is more in the nature of protecting the
employees than in curtailing their benefits. The way the owners are using the
Section 20j to deny the wages and allowances as per the Wage Board
recommendations flies in the face of Sections 13 and 16 of the Working
Journalists Act, he told the court.
Shri Gonsalves further submitted
by many illustrations as to how the Wage Board recommendations are being denied
by the proprietors. He told the Hon’ble Court that under Section 20j, the
signatures from the employees should have been obtained within three weeks of
the notification but the owners have forcibly obtained their signatures even
after many months of the notification. He also highlighted the issues related
to the Contract Employment and the Variable Dearness Allowance.
From the side of the proprietors
Senior Advocate, Shri Anil Divan held the forte. He submitted that under the
Contempt of Court Act, the Court has got very limited area and scope to travel
but in these contempt petitions those issues have been raised which were not
the part of the Writ Petition. He submitted a list of the cases decided by the
Hon’ble Supreme Court, which have dealt with the ambit of the Contempt of Court.
Shri Divan tried his best to entangle the crux of the matter in the web of his
own submissions.
Justice Gogoi asked Advocates of
other managements to make submissions only when they have to add something new
and more than what Shri Divan has already submitted. Thus all other Senior
Advocates of the managements only adopted the arguments of Shri Anil Divan.
On the next date of hearing the
employees’ advocates will get the opportunity to demonstrate where and how the
proprietors have committed the Contempt of Court.
Parmanand
Pandey
Secretary
General-IFWJ
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