TURA: The agitating employees of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council have approached the Meghalaya High Court seeking its intervention over unpaid dues to the council from various government departments so that the money can be channelized for their pending salaries which have not been paid for over two years.
The advocate for the Non-Gazeted Employees Association (NGEA), P T Sangma, had filed a writ petition in the Meghalaya high Court.
“We would like to highlight to the media that we have filed another writ petition in the High Court of Meghalaya seeking direction from the Hon’ble High court to release the royalty share of Rs.55 Crores to the GHADC to enable the GHADC to release the pending salary of the employee of GHADC. The Hon’ble High court in Vide WP (C) No.54 of 2021 in order dated.23.02.2021 issued notice to the State respondent and directed to file their respective counter affidavit on the next date,” stated the NGEA in a communiqué to the media on Tuesday.
According to the NGEA, a sum of Rs. 55 Crores is still pending with the Meghalaya Government but this amount of royalty share from three departments, namely, Chief Conservator of Forests, Director of Mineral Resources and the Commissioner of Transport have not released the due royalty share for the year 2019-2020, even though the Secretary to the Executive Committee of GHADC had written a separate letter to the above mentioned departments on 29th September 2020 with even the Executive Body of the NGEA strongly pursuing the matter with the government.
The NGEA also stated that royalty share is the only source of income/revenue which can be used for payment of salary to the employees and charged the government of ‘willfully’ not releasing the same compelling the association to seek legal recourse.