CRRID stares at losing ICSSR funding if salary dues of employees not cleared in 3 weeks
The Supreme Court has directed the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) — a Chandigarh-based autonomous research institute — to clear the salary dues of its employees from April 2021 to March 2023 in three weeks from its own resources.
“In case, CRRID fails to release this amount in favour of the employees, we direct ICSSR (the Indian Council of Social Science Research) to withhold all further grant-in-aid in favour of CRRID,” a Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K Vinod Chandran.
“CRRID will not only have to release the amount in favour of employees but shall also file a compliance report before ICSSR stating that this has been done within the stipulated period. This we do as we cannot lose sight of the fact that anomalies have been committed at the end of CRRID,” the bench said.
“We make it clear that what has been determined in the case of ICSSR as to its liabilities of payment of grants will also apply to the state of Punjab,” it said, allowing the ICSSR’s appeal.
Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Dhulia directed the top court’s registry to release the amount deposited by ICSSR in the court, in favour of ICSSR along with the interest, if any, within a week.
“ICCSR and the state of Punjab are at liberty to move applications before the high court to get back the amount, if any, deposited by them and the high court shall decide such applications in the light of this order,” the bench said.
The order came on the ICSSR’s petition challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s May 16, 2024 order reiterating the findings of a single judge and directing that the amount deposited by ICSSR before the registry of the high court be disbursed in favour of the employees as their salaries.
The bench held that CRRID was not an authority within the purview of Article 12 of the Constitution. “Merely because CRRID is under the control of an authority (as defined under Article 12) will not make CRRID an authority. In fact, this is neither the case of the respondents-employees nor does CRRID in any manner assert itself as an authority,” it said.
ICSSR — a society established in 1969 and registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 runs under the financial and administrative control of the Union Ministry of Education while CRRID – set up in 1978 — is administered, directed, and controlled by its governing body having maximum 12 members, including seven life members.
ICSSR provides grants to institutions involved in social science research and since one of the aims of CRRID is to conduct and promote research in various subjects including social sciences. CRRID used to receive 45 per cent grants from ICSSR and equally 45 per cent from the state of Punjab while the remaining 10 per cent was generated by CRRID through its own resources.
A committee appointed by ICSSR in May 2017 highlighted various irregularities and malpractices within CRRID which was found to be in violation of its rules as there were appointments of unqualified persons with either fake or dubious degrees.
“There were findings of non-maintenance of proper office records, etc. The committee recommended several corrective measures to be taken by CRRID, including the recovery of excess payments made by CRRID to some of its employees,” the Supreme Court verdict noted. As CRRID did not submit clarifications, CSSR finally stopped releasing its grant in favour of CRRID April 2021 onwards and the Punjab Government also topped 45 per cent of its share of grant to CRRID, leading to the litigation started by 17 CRRID employees in the high court for release of their salary.
