Cabinet free to act on scribes' wage board recommendations: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today yet again refused to restrain the Union Cabinet from taking any decision on the Majithia Wage Board’s recommendations for journalists and non-journalists, turning down pleas by various media to do so. “Propriety demands that when the matter is before the Union Cabinet, we should not pass any order. However, any decision taken by the Union Cabinet will be subject to the final orders passed by this court,” a bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari and Dipak Misra said. [caption id=“attachment_105048” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The bench took serious note of newspaper managements writing a controversial letter to the Union Labour Secretary. Reuters”] [/caption] The bench made the observation following repeated pleas of various newspaper managements to restrain the Union Cabinet from taking any decision on the wage board recommendations on the ground that the matter is pending before the apex court. The bench took serious note of newspaper managements writing a controversial letter to the Union Labour Secretary asking him not to take any decision on the recommendations till the matter was decided by the apex court. Additional Solicitor General Parag Tripathi had drawn the attention of the bench about the letter. “It is very, very unfair on your part to write such a letter,” said the bench, prompting senior counsel Fali Nariman and KK Venugopal for newspaper managements to immediately withdraw the letter. While recording in its order, the managements’ act of withdrawing its letter to the labour secretary, the bench asked the Union government to file its counter affidavit on the batch of petitions by the managements challenging the Wage Board recommendations. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions by various newspaper managements and media houses including Anand Bazar Patrika Pvt Ltd (ABP), Bennett Coleman Co.Ltd and news agency United News of India (UNI), which had challenged the Majithia Wage Board’s recommendations. PTI