Private schools bound to pay minimum wage to staff

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has struck down the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government amendment to end applicability of labour law about minimum wage to the private educational institutions in the province.

A division bench comprising Justice Ikramullah Khan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim declared illegal the amendments barring the private educational institutions from applicability of minimum wage law.

A Peshawar-based lawyer, Salim Shah Hoti, had challenged the amendments to the labour law and requested the court to strike down the relevant amendments to the laws by declaring them illegal.

He had filed the petition in the larger public interest, saying private educational institutions across the province were subjecting teachers to the worst form of exploitation but they had been removed from the purview of the Labour Department for being owned by several lawmakers.

The petitioner claimed that the assembly’s speaker Asad Qaiser and other lawmakers from the government side owned educational institutions, due to which the impugned amendments were made.

During the course of hearing, Saleem Shah Hoti submitted that there was no law in the province to regulate private educational institutions, especially the salary of teachers and working conditions for them. He pointed out that the provincial assembly had passed The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Amendment Laws) Act 2015, through which different amendments were made to different labour laws.

The amendments included the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Payment of Wages Act 2013, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) 2013, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minimum Wages Act 2013 and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Industrial Statistics Act 2013. He said the labour laws in question were no longer applied to private educational institutions in the province after those amendments.

After the enforcement of the Constitution (18th Amendment) Act 2010, he stated that four labour laws in question were passed in the province in 2013.

He added that the provincial legislature had passed those laws for the welfare of the workers associated with private sector institutions and units.

The petitioner said those laws were meant to regulate the minimum wages to certain classes of persons employed in factories, industrial establishment and commercial establishment, regulate the payment of wages, provide for regulation of industrial and commercial employment in the province, and facilitate the collection of statistics of certain kinds relating to factories, and industrial and commercial establishments.

Saleem Shah Hoti claimed the minimum monthly salary had been fixed at Rs15,000 in the province but the private educational institutions had employed highly educated and qualified male and female teachers and ancillary staff members for few thousand rupees, which was both disrespectful and insufficient for them. The petitioner said that in several private educational institutions, the staff members were not paid salary during summer and other vacations, which was an act of sheer injustice and exploitation.

He said the Labour Department had launched a campaign to collect the statistics of private educational institutions in the province and carry out their inspection to address the grievances of the people and staff members. However, following the controversial amendments, the Labour Department had no authority to check these exploitations.

On the other hand, counsel for private educational institutions, Abdul Satar questioned that the petitioner has no locus standi as the petition is non-maintainable.

Furthermore, he added that KP Regulatory Authority for Private Educational Institutions had been established for regulation of the institutions.

However, assistant director legal, Labour Department, informed the bench that the department had opposed the amendment when it was being passed by the assembly.

The additional advocate general also questioned locus standi of the petitioner and said the Labour Laws in the province were made in the light of International Labour Organisation (ILO) and there too some discriminatory laws existed. The court, after detailed arguments, allowed the petition and declared that the KP government’s amendment to other Labour Law to end applicability of the minimum wages for private educational institutions was illegal.