Explain why arrears of law researchers are not paid yet: Delhi High Court to Delhi government

The Delhi High Court on Monday sought a response from the Delhi government as to why it has not cleared the arrears of law researchers of High Court judges [Danish Iqbal v. GNCTD]. .Justice Prathiba M Singh was hearing a plea filed by a group of law researchers of various judges of the High Court. They sought implementation of the orders passed by the Chief Justice of the High Court on August 24, 2018 and September 3, 2019. The Chief Justice had initially fixed their remuneration at ₹25,000 and the same was enhanced to ₹35,000 by an order passed on September 18, 2017. Further orders were passed on August 24, 2018 when the remuneration was enhanced to ₹50,000 and finally on September 3, 2019, the same was enhanced to ₹65,000. .The petitioners contended that despite working as law researchers during the relevant period, they haven't received the arrears yet. They even filed an application under the Right to Information Act (RTI) only to learn that the financial sanction for paying the arrears has not been issued by the Delhi government. Therefore, they filed the writ petition seeking release of arrears of their remuneration as fixed by the Chief Justice of the High Court. .Having considered the issue, Justice Singh issued notice to the Delhi government."Let the government counsel take instructions in the matter and place on record the reasons as to why sanction has not been issued in respect to the arrears liable to be paid to Law Researchers who were discharging their duties at the relevant point of time," the Bench ordered. .A further direction was issued to the government file an affidavit or a status report on the issue by May 15.The matter will be next heard on May 22. .Senior Advocate Nidhesh Gupta along with Advocate Kaustubh Shakkarwar appeared for the Petitioners. Advocates Avnish Ahlawat, Nitesh Kumar Singh, Lavanya Kaushik, Aliza Alam represented the GNCTD. .[Read order]