Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Thursday sought the government’s reply to a PIL which objected to the appointing of politically affiliated persons as chairman and member of the Telangana Wage Advisory Board (TWAB).
A division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice P. Sam Koshy on Thursday issued notices to the Chief Secretary, the principal secretary and the commissioner, labour department, B. Janak Prasad, TWAB chairman, and S. Narasimha Reddy, member, directing them to respond within four weeks.
The bench was dealing with a PIL, which is at the scrutiny stage, filed by Ganji Srinivas, trade union activist, seeking a direction to suspend GO 443 dated 15-3-24, appointing Prasad and GO 21, Labour, dated 12-12-24, appointing Narasimha Reddy.
Chikkudu Prabhakar, counsel for the petitioner, argued that the appointments were in violation of Sections 8(2) and 9 of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and against Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution. As per these sections, any person appointed as chairman or member of the TWAB should be independent, in that they should not enjoy any other office.
According to Prabhakar, Prasad was secretary-general of the Singareni Coal Mines Labour Union, affiliated to the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), and spokesperson of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee. Narasimha Reddy was vice-president of the Singareni union. Further, counsel contended that, after formation of the Telangana, the state government had not enhanced minimum wages in accordance with the law, though two advisory boards were constituted in 2014 and 2016.
