Supreme Court of India. New Delhi. (Express Photo By Amit Mehra) Supreme Court of India. New Delhi. (Express Photo By Amit Mehra)

The Supreme Court has stayed the Uttarakhand High Court order to stop the salaries of state education department officials for January 2018 if government-run schools were not equipped with basic amenities.

In its June 30 order, the high court had asked the state government to provide basic amenities in the schools by December this year failing which “all gazetted officers in the education department including principal secretary (education), secretary (education), deputy secretary (education), [and] all the directors in the education department shall not be paid their salaries for the month of January 2018.”

In its order on Wednesday, the Supreme Court stated that the Uttarakhand government had submitted that “the state is determined to do what has been directed by the High Court, but that shall take some time”.

The apex court, however, stayed the High Court order to stop the salaries of officials.

Stating that the school education department needed “a lot more time” to equip government-run schools across Uttarakhand with basic amenities, secretary (school education) Bhupinder Kaur Aulakh said, “We had approached the apex court after the June 30 order of the (Uttarakhand) High Court. In our plea to the court we stated that we are making all possible efforts to follow the High Court order (of providing basic amenities in schools). However, it is a huge task and we need a lot more time (than was provided) to fulfil the High Court orders.”

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