The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) and the Labour Commissioner to issue notifications informing all private sector employees, especially those in the unorganised sector, of their legal entitlement to a paid holiday on the day of polling for Assembly election so that they could assert themselves and take appropriate steps to exercise their franchise on that day.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy also ordered that the notification must warn the erring employers of penal action if complaints were received regarding denial of paid holiday on the day of polling and they were found to be genuine after a due inquiry. The orders were passed while disposing of a public interest litigation petition filed by Salem-based lawyer M. Ahamed Shahjahan.
The petitioner claimed that he was well aware of the travails faced by the labourers in the unorganised sector since he had been conducting cases for them for long. The petitioner had also founded a political party called Bismillah Makkal Katchi (BMK) and had contested elections since 2004. He was contesting from Salem North Assembly constituency in the ensuing elections scheduled to be held on April 6.
In his affidavit, the litigant pointed out that Section 135B (1) of the Representation of the People Act of 1951 categorically states that every person employed in any business, trade, industrial undertaking or any other establishment and entitled to vote at an election either to the House of the People or the Legislative Assembly of a State shall, on the day of poll, be granted a holiday to provide an opportunity to cast his vote.
Further, Section 135B(2) goes on to elaborate that no deduction or abatement of wages of any such person should be made on account of the holiday having been granted in accordance with sub section (1) and if such person was employed on the basis that he would not ordinarily receive wages for such a day, he shall nonetheless be paid for such day the wages he would have drawn had not a holiday been granted to him on that day.
Nevertheless, advocate Niranajan Rajagopalan, representing the CEO, informed the court that some employers end up violating these legal provisions because Section 135B(3) provides for imposing a meagre fine of ₹500 for violating sub sections (1) or (2). He said sub section (4) which grants exemption to certain class of employees also gets cited as an excuse sometimes to not grant paid holiday to employees on the day of poll.
Section 135B(4) states that the entire provision relating to grant of paid holiday would not apply to any elector whose absence may cause danger or substantial loss in respect of the employment in which he/she was engaged.
