TURA: The Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) has on Wednesday sought three additional weeks time from the High Court of Meghalaya to settle the pending salaries of its several hundred employees who have not been paid their monthly dues for more than a year.
On the eve of the High Court hearing, the GHADC authorities had made an attempt to release an advance payment of five thousand rupees to be paid to each of the staff member and elected MDCs while muster roll workers were to be given three thousand rupees.
However, the non-gazetted employees union of the district council outright rejected the proposal of the Congress-led executive committee headed by Chief Executive member (CEM) Boston Marak. When the matter came up for hearing in the court of the Chief Justice of Meghalaya High Court, Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, the counsel for the GHADC, Sujit Dey, sought time of three more weeks for the council authorities to clear the pending dues.
“We sought three weeks time which was granted to us by the High Court and the matter will be listed for hearing three weeks from now,” said GHADC advocate Sujit dey while speaking to The Shillong Times.
Earlier, the council had been granted two weeks time by the High Court leading to its hearing on Wednesday.
Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, the GHADC CEM Boston Marak had directed the finance department of the council to release a sum of Rs 5000 each to all the 29 elected MDCs and employees including casual workers while muster roll workers were to paid Rs 3000.
The order stated that the advance payment was to be deducted from the pay bill of November 2016.
However, the several hundred employees of the district council were unfazed by the move after having suffered for over 13 long months without their pay. They quickly rejected the proposal terming it as ‘too little, too late’.