"Sikhism preaches generosity": Delhi High Court holds Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee guilty of contempt for not paying school staff

The Delhi High Court recently held serving President and General Secretary of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) guilty of contempt of court for failing to pay the salaries and arrears of staff working with 12 of its schools as per the sixth and seventh Central Pay Commissions (CPC) recommendations [Mrs Tejinder Pal Gujral v S Manjinder Singh Sirsa & Ors + Connected matters]..Harmeet Singh Kalka is the President of DSGMC while the post of General Secretary is held by Jagdeep Singh Khalon. In a detailed judgement pronounced on February 26, the Court issued notice of show cause to them on the quantum of punishment to be awarded.The Court opined that Sikhism preaches ideals of honesty, compassion, humanity, humility, and generosity in everyday life and while there is no doubt that various philanthropic and charitable causes are being discharged by the community and its leaders, at the same time, it should be kept in mind that ‘charity begins at home’.“There is no point of such philanthropic activities and values when its own teachers and staff of the schools, who are helping to lay down the foundation of a good and progressive society by imparting education and instilling moral values to young students and helping in running the said institutions, are ill-treated and not given their rightful dues, on the other hand are rather made to suffer the agony of approaching this Court repeatedly for the same.”.Justice Navin Chawla also issued show cause notice to previous management committees of the DSGMC and ordered them to file their replies in four weeks.He ordered that any rent received from any source whatsoever by the DSGMC and the Guru Harkrishan Public School (New Delhi) Society (which is run by the DSGMC and is tasked with management of various schools) shall be attached and utilised only for the purpose of clearing the arrears of sixth and seventh CPC owed to 12 schools managed by Guru Harkrishan Public School Society (GHPS Society).The Court said that the salary and other financial perquisites of the members of the GHPS Society and the DSGMC shall also be withheld till further orders or till the entire dues of employees, teaching and non-teaching staff of the schools are fully paid..The Court passed the order while dealing with a batch of petitions filed by the staff of the 12 schools run by GHPS Society alleging non-compliance with the High Court’s order of November 16, 2021 by which the GHPS and DSGMC were ordered to pay their salaries and arrears as per the recommendations of the pay commissions.This order was challenged in appeal. When the matter was heard, several assurances were made to the Court that the salaries will be paid and the dues will also be cleared.Justice Chawla considered the case and concluded that those assurances and undertakings were given merely to buy time and now the blame was being sought to be passed on to the previous managements.“The financial incapacity to clear the arrears and pay even the current dues, as pleaded by the respondents, only strengthens the belief of this Court that there is gross mis-management of the affairs of the schools, GHPS (ND) Society, and to some extent, even of the DSGMC,” the Court stressed..The Court concluded that Kalka and Khalon as well as Mandeep Kaur who is the honorary secretary of GHPS Society, do not deserve to hold their posts.However, the Court said that before they are ordered to be removed, a forensic audit of GHPS Society and 12 schools run by it must be done for the period from April 2020 to December 2023.It, therefore, ordered the audit of the society and directed the auditor to submit the first audit report by July 31, 2024.The Court further directed the DSGMC to provide funds to GHPS Society to ensure that employees are henceforth paid in accordance with the CPC recommendations and their arrears are also cleared.“It is further clarified that amongst other philanthropic activities that DSGMC claims to be conducting, the duty to discharge the dues of the employees, including the teachers of the GHPS (ND) Society and its schools, shall be primary in nature, meaning thereby that other activities, even if they are needed to be reduced or stopped, it shall be so reduced or stopped by the DSGMC in order to provide requisite funds to the GHPS(ND) Society and the schools to pay the dues, including arrears and interest, to the staff and the teachers of the schools,” Justice Chawla ordered..The Court also rejected the contention that the DSGMC is not responsible for clearing the dues of the school staff.“There is also an all pervasive control of the DSGMC on the functioning of the schools. DSGMC, therefore, cannot claim any immunity or claim that they are not bound to comply with the judgment dated 16.11.2021 of this Court or be bound by their undertaking. The said judgment has been accepted by DSGMC and has attained finality and it is too late in the date to now contend to the contrary,” the Court said. .Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur along with advocates JS Bedi, Kuljeet Singh, Amanpreet Singh Bhalla, Ankit Singh Sinsinwar, Nikhilesh Kumar, Chetan Anand, Akash Srivastava, Tejaswini Singh, Sumeet Kaur, Atul Kumar, Abhimanyu Sharma, Mangesh Naik, Ajay Kapur, Charanpreet Singh, Sonali Arora, Kartik Malhotra, Darsh Bansal and Parminder Singh Goindi appeared for the teaching staff.Delhi Singh Gurdwara Management Committee was represented by Senior Advocates IS Alag and Kirti Uppal as well as advocates Avneet Kaur, Abhinash K Mishra and Gaurav Kr Pandey.Advocates Naushad Ahmed Khan, Pragya Dubey, Latika Chaudhary, Yeeshu Jain, Jyoti Tyagi, Hitanshu Mishra, Sujeet Kumar Mishra, Utkarsh, Pankaj Balwan, Gaurav Dhingra, V Balaji, Nizamudding, Pankaj Balwan and Gaurav Prakash appeared for Department of Education.Delhi Government was represented through Standing Counsel (Service) Avnish Ahlawat as well as advocates Tania Ahlawat, Nitesh Kumar Singh, Laavanya Kaushik, Aliza Alam and Mohnish Sehrawat. .[Read Judgment]