By IANS,
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Tuesday ordered the Bihar government to begin paying full salary to its road transport corporation officials with immediate effect.
A bench of Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice J.M. Panchal also asked the state government to clear the entire salary arrears and other dues of the Bihar State Road Transport Corporation officials (BSRTC) within six months.
It issued the orders on a joint plea by over 6,000 serving and retired BSRTC officials, who were deprived of their salaries since 1994 owing to heavy losses the corporation incurred in operating transport service across the vast undivided state.
Of the 6,000 BSRTC employees, over 4,000 have already retired and some of them are dead.
After facing penury and destitution for over six years, the employees began getting half of their salary from 2000 only after the apex court intervened and admitted their plea for release of their salaries and other dues.
The bench Tuesday also ordered the state government to file the compliance report of its order by December.
The apex court’s order was based on the recommendations of Justice Sageer Ahmed Committee, which was constituted by the court to examine the problems of BSRTC employees and suggest measures to solve them.
As the problem pertained to undivided Bihar, the committee constituted in 2004 to examine the problem also recommended that part of the burden has to be shared by the government of Jharkhand, which was carved out of Bihar in 2000.
Accordingly, the apex court has ordered the Jharkhand government to share part of its burden towards payment of arrears of the BSRTC employees.