The public interest litigation for review of wages, benefit and working environment of priests, sevadars and other staff sent to aid in the functioning of state funded temples throughout the country will be heard by the Supreme Court of India.
Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay has filed a petition before a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, who are likely to direct for the hearing of the matter.
Asking the Centre and state governments to set up a judicial commission or an expert committee to look into the salaries and welfare packages and service conditions for the priests and temple workers in state-controlled temple administration.
According to the petition, the Justice Department, by taking the administrative and financial responsibility of the temples, the government indirectly became the employer of the employees of the temple, thus forming an employer-employee relationship. It also alleges that the non-payment of dignified wages to the priests and workers is a violation of their constitutional right to advancement towards the means of livelihood as mentioned in Article 21.
Many of the priests and clergy members at the temple, let alone those who do work there, are not even paid what the government stipulated for “unskilled” and “semi-skilled laborers,” the plea says. The petitioner said that it came to his notice on visiting Varanasi’s famous Kashi Vishwanath Temple.
The petition also cited the on-going protests by the temple employees and priests in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana demanding better salary and working conditions.
In the PIL it also wants the state government to recognise the priests and those working in the temples also as workers and hence help them enjoy the “labour welfare” under the Code on Wages, 2019, despite the fact that the government has direct control over the administration of the temples.