SHILLONG: The High Court of Meghalaya wanted to know who is controlling the Shillong Municipal Board in the absence of the election as required under the Constitution of India as well as the Municipal Act in the wake of lack of response from the Board regarding payment of pension benefits to its retired employees.
As the case of retired staff of Shillong Municipal Board came up for hearing on Tuesday, Judge SR Sen said that though the employees retired three years back, till date they did not get their pension benefits. “As a result, they are living with adverse circumstances”.
Shillong Municipal Board submitted that since the Board is facing financial crisis, it had written a letter on March 18, 2014 to the Director, Urban Affairs Department, to release certain amount of money to meet the day to day expenditure as well as to clear the pension benefits and others, but till date there is no response from the Director, Urban Affairs Department.
R. Gurung, government advocate appearing for the State and Urban Affairs Department, could not give any satisfactory reply on the issue and submitted that, certain amount of money had been released to meet the salary of the staff and the expenditures are supposed to be borne by the Shillong Municipal Board at their own cost.
“For the wrong policy of the government, the common people are suffering. I feel it is necessary that this needs to be addressed immediately. I hereby direct the Principal Secretary, Urban Affairs Department, and the Director, Urban Affairs Department, to appear in person to assist this court on the next date of hearing on March 24 “, the Judge said.
