The North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) today said that the Meghalaya High Court has dismissed the writ appeal filed by the NEHU Teachers’ Association (NEHUTA) against the Central government’s decision to discontinue Hill Area Special Allowance (HASA) for teachers of the university.
According to NEHU, the division bench of the Meghalaya High Court after hearing the case, in the recent judgment has dismissed the writ appeal in favour of the Centre and NEHU on the discontinuation of HASA to the NEHU employees.
NEHU also said that while dismissing the matter, the High Court has also cleared the allegation on manipulation and malafide intention by the Vice-Chancellor, NEHU, Prof. Sri Krishna Srivastava as alleged by NEHUTA.
The decision of NEHU to discontinue payment of HASA to the employees was challenged by the NEHUTA before the High Court vide WP(C)No. 186 of 2017 and the single bench of the court had decided the matter in favour of the Centre and others, including NEHU.
Against the judgement passed by the single bench, the NEHUTA had filed a Writ Appeal No. 12 of 2018 before the division bench of the Meghalaya High Court which dismissed the writ appeal.
According to NEHU, as per act and statutes of the university, the President of India is the Visitor of the university and any directive from the Visitor must be complied and implemented by the university and its stakeholders.
“As per the direction from the Visitor conveyed through the Ministry of Education (formerly Ministry of Human & Resource Development), Government of India to discontinue payment of Hill Area Special Allowance (HASA) to the employees of NEHU vide letter dated 11.05.2017. Accordingly, the university had complied with the direction of the Visitor and a Notification dated 14.06.2017 was issued to this effect,” NEHU said.
