GUWAHATI, Oct 22: The Supreme Court has directed the Assam chief secretary to appear before the court and provide an explanation as to why no sincere effort has been made on the part of the Assam government to settle the long-pending dues of tea estate workers in the state.
The chief secretary has been asked to personally remain present in the apex court on November 14, 2024, which is the next date of hearing.
The court further issued a notice to the Union Ministry of Commerce, while responding to a statement from the counsel for Assam that the central government also had a role to play in ensuring that the workers’ dues were paid.
The court order on Monday comes in response to an ongoing contempt petition, filed in 2012, concerning the unpaid salaries and allowances of tea garden workers employed by the state-owned Assam Tea Corporation Limited (ATCL).
A bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Augustine George Masih expressed concern over the unpaid dues of tea estate workers in Assam and criticised the state government and ATCL.
Last year, the Supreme Court had directed both the state and central governments to disburse Rs 645 crore to 28,556 workers from 25 tea gardens, 15 of which are managed by ATCL.
During the hearing, Justice Oka noted that while the corporation had earned Rs 38 crore from rental income, the workers remained unpaid. The court further sought a clarification on whether any part of the balance Rs 4 crore would be used to pay the workers’ dues.
The counsel for the Assam government submitted that there had been significant financial losses besides claiming that many lessees of the tea estates failed to maintain profitability and eventually returned the gardens to ATCL, exacerbating the financial losses.
When Justice Oka proposed that if the state could not manage the tea estates, all properties should be sold to ensure the workers receive their dues, the counsel said there were restrictions on the use of tea garden land for any purpose other than tea cultivation.
Notably, the International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers had, in the year 2006, filed a petition before the Supreme Court demanding payment of overdue wages and benefits.
Despite a directive by the apex court in 2010, ordering the disbursement of the dues to the tea garden workers, compliance remained incomplete, prompting the contempt petition two years later.
In 2020, the apex court had constituted a one-person committee, headed by retired Justice A.M Sapre, to ascertain the dues owed to the workers.
Accordingly, the committee estimated that a sum of Rs 414.73 crore was owed to the tea estate workers in the state, while an additional sum of Rs 230.69 crore was due to the Provident Fund department.