GUWAHATI, July 23 - The Supreme Court will hear the contempt petitions on the Majithia Wage Board in batches. A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and PC Pant has decided that only five States will be heard at a time.
�The court also directed that all the Labour Commissioners of the States concerned will be present at the time of hearing in the court room to reply to the queries. The next date of hearing is August 23,� a statement from Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) said.
The only major State which will come up in the first leg of hearing is Uttar Pradesh. Four States from the North-east will also be heard on the day. The court said that it would mainly focus on three issues � (a) whether obtaining of signatures of employees declining the Majithia Award, is valid or not? (b) Whether the newspapers which have not implemented the Award and complaints have not been received from their employees, can be allowed to go without obligations cast on them? (c) And, can any agreement be entered between employees and employers against the statutory provisions?
In the meantime, the court also gave the liberty to the employers and employees to file their objections, if any, to the status reports submitted by the Labour Commissioners.
�The court passed the order for the sake of streamlining the arguments of the parties in view of the huge pile of documents submitted by the employers and employees,� it added.
