A day after Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi threatened to stage a dharna against Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit for withholding his assent to a bill for regularising 36,000 contractual employees “under BJP’s pressure”, the latter on Sunday termed the Congress leader’s claims as “factually incorrect”.
The Governor maintained that he had reverted the said Bill to the Chief Minister’s Office on December 31, with some queries, which the Government now needed to answer.
The Governor, updating the status of the file regarding Bill of regularizing the services of contractual employees in Punjab, said that the same was reverted to the office of Chief Minister Punjab with “six queries” which needs to be clarified by the State Government.
“The file was duly received by CMO on December 31, 2021, and the reply to queries is awaited....I advise the Chief Minister to give reply to the queries raised on the file,” said Purohit, adding, “Once the reply comes, the Bill will be re-examined at Governor's Secretariat.”
Notably, the Punjab Vidhan Sabha had passed ‘The Punjab Protection and Regularization of Contractual Employees Bill-2021’ on November 11, 2021, for regularising the services of 36,000 employees working on contract or on ad-hoc, temporary or daily basis in different government departments.
The Governor pointed out that the file for the same was sent to Punjab Raj Bhawan on December 1, 2021 — after “a lapse of nearly 20 days”.
“During the month of December, the Governor was on tour to various districts of the State. The Governor concluded the tour on December 21 and thereafter, on December 23, Punjab Chief Minister came and met him at Punjab Raj Bhawan. The file was duly studied and reverted with observation or queries to CMO on December 31, 2021,” said the spokesperson.
Channi, interacting with the media on the completion of his Government’s 100 days, had accused the Governor for “stopping the file (relating to the bill) because of some political reasons”.
The Chief Minister had said that he, along with his Ministers, had already met the Governor on the issue while the Chief Secretary had also visited the Governor twice.
“I and my Ministers will meet the Governor again on Monday...If he does not do it (clear the file), then it is politics. If we have to stage a dharna, we will do it but we have to regularise employees. A law has been framed,” Channi had said on Saturday.
The previous month, Channi had met the Governor to raise the issue of 12 bills, including the regularisation bills, requiring his assent.
QUERIES RAISED BY THE GOVERNOR
Asking the Government to provide certain additional information and address the queries, the Governor pointed that the vide CWP 4187 of 2017, Anika Gupta Vs State of Punjab, the vires of the ‘The Punjab Adhoc, Contractual, Daily wages, Temporary, Work charged and Outsourced Employees Welfare Act-2016’, which the current bill seeks to repeal and replace, has been challenged. State Government's note makes no mention of the current status of this case, which may be provided
How many more court cases are pending, which have challenged the ‘The Punjab Adhoc, Contractual, Daily wages, Temporary, Work charged and Outsourced Employees welfare Act 2016’ Act, and what are the current status of such cases. What are the interim or final orders of the Judicial Courts in such cases?
The contractual employees have been recruited at various times without following the reservation rules. Now when they are to be regularized, with their induction, will the reservation ratio not get disturbed and be not in accordance with the reservation rules. Will this not adversely affect the welfare of the underprivileged class of people eligible for reservations? Will this not be violative of fundamental provisions of the Constitution of India? It is not clear how the state government proposes to fulfill the shortfall in the reserved posts that may arise due to such regularisation of contractual employees, without being in contravention with the decisions of the Supreme Court in the State of Karnataka vs Uma Devi case?
This is a Money Bill. The Committee of officials constituted to examine the financial impact have reported an estimated amount of Rs 827.87 crore of annual expenditure burden in regularizing an estimated 32166 such employees in Government Departments and an amount of Rs 974 crore annual expenditure burden for regularizing an estimated 34007 such employees in Boards and corporations.
There is no mention in the Cabinet note of how the State Government proposes to meet this expenditure?