A migrant worker speaks on his mobile phone laying in front of a closed shop in a market area in New Delhi on April 21, 2020.
| Photo Credit: AFP
Bench asks Centre to reply in two weeks.
The Supreme Court has given the Centre two weeks to explain a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) order, issued on March 29, directing employers to pay full wages to their workers during the lockdown.
A three-judge Bench, led by Justice N.V. Ramana, on Monday, allowed Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the government, to file his response to a batch of petitions filed by several companies challenging the constitutional validity of the March 29 order, which mandates that industry, shops and commercial establishments, without exception, pay their workers without any deduction in the name of COVID-19. The petitions said a blanket direction to private establishments to pay full salaries against no work was arbitrary and violative of Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution.