
The Delhi High Court dismissed a plea challenging the deduction of one-day salary of a Delhi University teacher as contribution to the PM CARES fund.
While dismissing the petition, the Division Bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Sanjeev Narula asked itself a question that “wouldn’t a stone-hearted person only challenge the decision to deduct one day’s salary for a pandemic.” The order was passed in a Letters Patent Appeal whereby the appellant Professor Shreekant Gupta’s writ petition challenged the deduction by the respondent Delhi University.
His counsel, Srinivasan Ramaswamy, argued before the court that DU “did not give…adequate notice of such deduction and…proceeded to deduct one day’s salary even of those employees” who did not want to.
Noting that the present petition doesn’t qualify as a PIL, the court said, “The teachers and staff of Delhi University are neither financially weak nor suppressed to such an extent that they cannot approach this court directly.”