Delhi High Court tells govt toSpeed up allotment of workmen compensation cases

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The Delhi High Court has directed the AAP government to take steps to conform that more than 1,100 compensation cases for deaths and injuries pending under the Workmen’s Compensation Act are disposed of by January 2016.
Deputy labour commissioners of Delhi government have quasi-judicial authority to take up cases under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, Minimum Wages Act, Gratuity Act and other laws relating to benefits for workmen.

According to data submitted by the government, more than 6,200 cases are pending across all districts in the city before the labour commissioners.
The court has for now asked the government to submit an action plan within one week for the speedy disposal of such cases.
The bench of justice JR Midha had taken up the issue of speedy implementation of section 25A of the Employees Compensation Act which mandates the disposal of cases within three months from the date of reference.
In March, the bench had noted that there were several petitions pending before the court regarding delay in payment of compensation to the families of labourers who died due to injuries in accidents at the workplace.
In April, after the labour department submitted data on pending cases, the bench issued directions to create a committee to look into the issue and suggest ways to reduce the pendency.
The seven-member committee headed by amicus curiae senior advocate A J Bhambani includes government lawyers, a DCP-level officer of Delhi Police and a senior officer of the labour department.
It had said there was need to decrease the burden on the labour commissioners and introduce better judicial training for officials to enable speedier disposal of cases.
In its submissions to the court last week, the government said it had decided to “immediately” post five DANICS officers to the labour department as deputy labour commissioners.
Further, 13 additional posts of joint labour commissioners will now be created, and a request will be made to the HC Chief Justice to depute seven judicial officers from the Delhi subordinate judiciary as joint labour commissioners to take over the quasi-judicial functions.
On the last hearing on September 14, the government had also informed the court it would be “restructuring” the department to separate the post of deputy labour commissioner (legal) and deputy commissioner (administrative) so that the huge amount of workload on a single officer is reduced.