ABSTRACT
Attorney General K. K. Venugopal has requested the Supreme Court to suspend the government's earlier order on full lockdown wages. Eventual payments, he suggested, could be settled through negotiations between workers and employers. On March 29, the Union Home Secretary issued an order saying, All the employers, be it in industry or in shops and commercial establishments, shall make payment of wages of their workers at their workplace, on the due date, without any deduction, for the period their establishments are under closure during the lockdown. Some employers have argued in the Supreme Court that the government was not empowered under the Disaster Management Act to direct the private sector to pay full wages to workers. The court has itself raised the same doubt. Employers have suggested that the government pay wages for the lockdown period from the excess funds of the Employees' State Insurance Corporation.
