Delhi HC PIL seeks enactment of Minimum Wages Act's Section 31A

New Delhi: Seeking order to the city administration to bring in rules for implementation of the Minimum Wages Act's Section 31A, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Delhi High Court.

The Minimum Wages Act's Section 31A mandates employers to upload employees' data on a designated website or web portal.

The litigation was filed by Social Jurist, who cited that this might benefit more than 60 lakh workers across more than 20 lakh establishments in Delhi.

According to the plea, the core objective of Section 31A, which is to shield workers from exploitation, a purpose it contends is compromised by delays in framing rules for its execution. The petitioner said that there is the Minimum Wages (Delhi) Amendment Act, 2017, which received presidential assent on April 23, 2018, and was published in the Delhi Gazette on May 4, 2018. But no essential rules for the implementation of the said law have been framed.

The litigation also submitted that the city administration has not provided any justifiable reason for the delay in framing said rules. It argued that such inaction is not only legally questionable but also goes against the spirit of the Amendment Act, which protects workers’ rights.