In a relief to over 7,000 retired employees of transport corporations in Tamil Nadu, the Madras High Court today directed the state government to clear by January 11, the pending Rs 204 crore as statutory dues to them.
A division bench of justices S Manikumar and M Govindaraj also made it clear that the amount should be disbursed to the beneficiaries by January 12, at any cost.
It passed the interim order despite the submission of Advocate General Vijay Narayan that the state was facing a severe financial crisis.
"The state is in a stressful financial situation. It has taken over Rs 10,000 crore commitments over and above the budget estimates for 2017-18," he said.
As on June 22, the state government owed Rs 614.91 crore to over 7,000 retired employees of its transport undertakings towards statutory dues like provident fund, gratuity and other superannuation benefits.
It also owed Rs 5,074.75 crore to existing employees.
The issue was brought to the notice of the court by 82-year-old retired employee Mayandi Servai through a postcard on May 16 last year to another bench of justices M V Muralidaran and N Seshasayee, when they were sitting as the vacation bench at Madurai.
He claimed that the benefits due to him had not been settled even after 24 years of his retirement. There were hundreds of similarly placed employees, he said.
Treating the postcard as a PIL, the court hauled up the government which finally agreed to settle Rs 1,136 crore in dues, following which a direction was passed to settle Rs 379 crore by December 15 last year.
But when the plea was taken up today, the government submitted that Rs 175 crore have been released out of the promised Rs 379 crore.
The court noted that it has already given enough time to the government to settle the dues and cannot provide any more time.
It then directed the government to settle the pending Rs 204 crore before the Pongal festival.
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