Thaindian News

Gandhinagar, Jan 17 (IANS) Employees of Gujarat’s industrial training institutes (ITIs) are entitled to be treated at par with state government employees for the purpose of salary and other monetary benefits like bonus, the Gujarat High Court has ruled.The court, while dismissing the state government’s appeal, ruled that teaching and non-teaching staff working in grants-in-aid institutions were entitled to bonus and other perks equivalent to government employees.

The division bench of Justice D.H. Waghela and Juastice K.A. Puj upheld a single judge bench’s order while ruling so.

The court observed, in an order made available Monday, that teaching and non-teaching staff of various universities, colleges affiliated to universities, primary and higher secondary schools and employees of the state social welfare advisory board were getting bonus and only the employees of ITIs were left out.

The court said the government could not satisfy it as to how ITI employees’ case was not covered under various government resolutions.

According to the case details, a government resolution allowed the employees of non-government grants-in-aid institutions like ITI to be treated at par with the government employees for the purpose of salary.

The finance department later issued another resolution for payment of bonus to government employees. However, in that resolution employees of non-government grants-in-aid institutions were not covered and were denied bonus.

Petitioner Mahendra Patel and other employees of ITIs moved the high court against the denial of bonus.

The single judge bench of the court allowed their petition and directed the government to pay them the bonus. The government appealed against the decision before the division bench, which upheld the earlier ruling.