New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday said that private establishments can negotiate with employees and reach a settlement on payment of wages, regardless of the 29 March notification by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that ordered companies to pay full wages to employees during the lockdown period.
The bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, S.K. Kaul and M.R. Shah also directed that, in the meantime, its order barring coercive action against employers who failed to comply with the MHA notification will continue to operate. It was hearing a batch of petitions challenging the notification.
“No industry can survive without the workers. Thus employers and employees need to negotiate and settle among themselves. If they are not able to settle it among themselves, they need to approach the concerned labour authorities to sort the issues out,” the court observed.
It added that the employers working at limited capacity during the lockdown can also enter into a negotiation. It further said that employees can be allowed to come back to work without prejudice to the ongoing negotiation.
The central government has also been asked to file a detailed reply to the petitions by the end of July, when the matter will be heard next.
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Order was temporary, has been retracted: Govt
On Thursday, the home ministry had told the apex court that the notification was never a permanent measure and had been withdrawn.
The government clarified that the order was retracted after inputs received from experts to resume commercial operations, so that the burden to pay workers without operations is mitigated.
It added that employers will now only have to pay for 54 days, the period when the order was in operation.
Additionally, during the hearing on 4 June, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal had asserted that wage payment was a matter between employers and their staff.
Meanwhile, the senior lawyers who intervened on behalf of the workers had argued that the no-work-no-pay principle cannot be applied during the lockdown period.
The bench had then wondered if the government could compel employers to pay. The court had even suggested negotiations with their employees. However, the firms had submitted that the notification disallowed such settlement talks, and threatened prosecution, making it difficult to get to a conciliatory point.
“You tell us, can you run an industry without labour? Therefore, you have to strike a balance and this should not be tilted either on the side of the employer or the employee,” Justice Shah had remarked.
The court had reserved its order on the petitions on 4 June.
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