The Supreme Court would on Friday pronounce its judgement on a batch of petitions, challenging the Union government's order to companies to make full payment of salaries to employees during the 54 days period of lockdown imposed to contain COVID-19 pandemic.
A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M R Shah would deliver the judgement at 10.30 am on June 12 on the petitions filed by Ficus Pax Private Ltd and others.
On June 4, the top court had directed that no coercive action should be taken against the companies until June 12, when it would pronounce its judgement on petitions questioning validity of March 29 order issued under the Disaster Management Act.
It had earlier also on May 15 protected the companies against any prosecution on non-compliance of the notification.
During the hearing, the court had suggested to find a middle ground to protect the interest of crores of contractual workers and employees as well as a group of companies, which vehemently opposed the Union government's order to pay full salary for 54 days during the nationwide lockdown.
The court had then observed that an industry cannot be run without protecting interest of labour.
The court had agreed that it may not be possible to give 100 per cent wages and the government can play a role of a facilitator.
Attorney General K K Venugopal said a balance has to be struck between the two sides.
He said in any event they have to pay 50 per cent. He asserted the government has done a good job as it infused Rs 20,000 crore in the MSME sector.
Notably, the March 29 order for payment of wages without any deduction was revoked on May 17.
In an affidavit, the Union government defended its notification, saying it would neither be in interest of justice nor in public interest to adjudicate upon validity of the notifications which operated only for 54 days to mitigate financial hardships of crores of workers and employees.
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