New Delhi, Aug 11 (PTI) The Delhi High Court Wednesday directed the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) to file a status report disclosing its securities and assets as well as the details of income and expenditure from 2012 when the trifurcation of the city's municipal corporation took place.

A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh, which was hearing a batch of petitions concerning the non-payment of salaries and pensions to certain categories of municipal employees, also called upon the SDMC to come up with a self-sustaining financial mechanism while continuing to discharge its municipal functions.

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The bench pointed out that presently, while salaries constituted 70-80 per cent of SDMC's expenditure, there was “hardly any expenditure” towards services.

“What is paining me is that you are not performing municipal functions. You are only paying salaries and pensions. Look at the state the city is in today. Salaries are beginning to be such a huge figure in the scheme of things. You are a municipality. Your primary function should be municipal,” said Justice Singh.

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“This can't go on indefinitely. It has to be a self-sustaining mechanism. We are (entertaining) because common man should not suffer. It does not seem correct to me,” the judge added.

Advocate Divya Prakash Pande, appearing for SDMC, sought a period of four weeks from the court to place on record the roadmap to augment the municipal corporation's resources and income.

Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj, who also appeared for SDMC, urged the court to direct Delhi government to “release some amount subject to orders” as was released earlier in favour of North Delhi Municipal Corporation.

The court, however, responded “You file account from 2012. You have to disclose securities and assets.”

The court also questioned as to when SDMC would pay the salaries to the categories of employees in question for the month of July since salaries only till June had been paid.

Pande stated that while efforts were being made, since SDMC was short on fund, he would not be able to give the exact date.

“Our heart goes out to the employees who are not being paid. These are class III, class IV employees,” the court said during the hearing.

The lawyer submitted that the SDMC had a cumulative surplus of around Rs 800 crore for three years i,e. 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19, however, from 2019 onwards, the position changed on account of the Delhi government reducing its share of payments by virtue of retrospective implementation of the Fifth Delhi Finance Commission.

“Surplus goes down in 2019-20. They (Delhi govt) started deducting. Every year the internal income is decreasing,” he explained.

Senior advocate Rahul Mehra, representing the Delhi government, contended that the SDMC ought to have given the account of its income and expenditure from the time the trifurcation took place and not 2016.

“The report is incomplete. These are three years and trifurcation happened in 2012,” said Mehra who also highlighted that the SDMC was yet to comply with the July 8 order directing the municipal corporations to list out steps taken to augment their resources.

Advocate Manu Chaturvedi, representing the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, submitted that in compliance with the order, his client has put in measures to augment resources through property tax and other miscellaneous charges.

He added that without the grant-in-aid (GIA) and basic tax assignment (BTA), EDMC would be in a “drastic situation”.

The court has listed all the petitions relating to non-payment of salaries and pensions to teachers, hospital staff, sanitation workers, engineers for further hearing on August 26.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)