JOIN USThe Central government has been asked by a Delhi court to pay over Rs 4 lakh to a man for “unjustifiably” terminating his contractual employment with the National AIDS Control Organisation.
Additional district judge Nivedita Anil Sharma asked the centre to pay Rs 3.81 lakh to south Delhi resident Dipak Kumar Saha as his remuneration — he was not paid from April 8, 2009 to August 31, 2009. Besides this, the court also told the government to pay Rs 25,000 as “special unliquidated damages” for mental agony and harassment suffered by him. The order came on a plea by Malviya Nagar resident Saha, seeking the court’s direction to declare the termination of his services with NACO by the centre as “illegal” and also seeking damages of Rs 3,81,334 and unliquidated damages. “The plaintiff (Saha) has not been paid his remuneration with effect from April 8, 2009 up to August 31, 2009 at the rate of Rs 80,000 per month, which totals to Rs 3,81,334 and the defendant (Union of India) is liable to pay this amount of Rs 3,81,334 to the plaintiff,” the judge said. Saha, in his petition, said he had received a mail from the Public Health Foundation India on June 9, 2008 informing him that he was shortlisted for telephonic interview for operationalising an HIV/AIDS project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.He was subsequently interviewed in NACO on July 11, 2008 and was found to be suitable for the post of programme officer in NACO, Saha said. He said through a letter dated August 26, 2008 he was offered a job for the post of programme officer (link worker scheme) initially on contract basis for a year at a consolidated remuneration of Rs 80,000 per month, after which he joined the services on September 1, 2008. Saha said after he joined NACO, he was “arbitrarily” made another offer at a monthly remuneration of Rs 50,000 with effect from January 1, 2009, following which he requested them not to reduce his salary, but they refused to accept it. He said he was paid a salary of Rs 80,000 in January 2009 but only Rs 20,000 was transferred to his account as salary in February 2009. In March 2009, he was informed that he has been removed from services with effect from April 7, 2009 and when he talked to the NACO secretary and director general about it, his services were extended for two months, after which he continued his work till April 20, 2009. He said he did not get his salary from April 2009 and was entitled to get Rs 3,81,334 for “arbitrary termination” of his services with effect from April 8, 2009 to August 31, 2009.