Civic employees strike: SC refuses to entertain plea seeking intervention

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain a plea seeking its intervention in the ongoing stir of MCD employees in Delhi, saying that it cannot "take over" the functions of the Delhi High Court.

"We are not supposed to take over the functions of the Delhi High Court. Don't come to us against any interim order," a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur said and asked petitioner Rahul Birla to go back to the high court with his grievances.

The counsel for Birla had sought the intervention of the apex court on the ground that no effective hearing had taken place in the high court which had simply adjourned the matter for further hearing for February 10.

The bench took a strong note of the plea and said that the appeals cannot be filed on the ground that the court below has adjourned the hearing. Birla had earlier filed a PIL in the high court claiming that due to non-payment of salaries and arrears since 2003 to the workers of the municipal corporations of Delhi (MCDs), the sanitation staff was not removing garbage from the streets.

On February 2, the MCDs had told the high court that they did not have the money to pay salaries for January 2016 and the coming months and alleged that the Delhi government has not released entire money that it has to give them each year.

To this, the government had contended that it had released the entire plan and non-plan grant-in-aid that was due to the corporations and that in view of their poor performance, year after year, the municipal reform funds would not be given to them. Municipal reform funds are given under recommendations of the 3rd Finance Commission for Delhi.

After the government had told the court that Delhi Development Authority (DDA) owed the three MCDs a total of over Rs 1555 crore as property tax, it sought response of DDA and the Centre on the issues raised and listed the matter for further hearing on February 10.