Bombay High Court has asked the RBI to consider the issue of payment of salaries to school teachers working in government aided schools. Disbursal of salaries of these teachers has been affected as routine operations of district cooperative banks have been affected post demonetisation.
The issue of non-payment of salaries to teachers was raised during the hearing of an application challenging the RBI’s decision to ban district cooperative banks from exchanging or depositing old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.
“RBI needs to consider this issue. We cannot take this matter up on merits as the Supreme Court is already seized of the main contentions raised in the petitions, but this particular issue about teachers’ salaries can be looked into,” said justice Oka.
“It is common knowledge that teachers of aided schools get their salaries from cooperative banks. We want to know how teachers will get their salaries now,” the court said.
Counsel of Solapur co-operative bank V M Thorat informed the court that the bank receives around Rs 95 crore from the state government for salaries of teachers, but due to RBI’s circular the bank is unable to disburse the amount. A division bench of Justices A.S Oka and Anuja Prabhudessai, then asked the Reserve Bank to consider the issue and explain how the teachers will get their salaries.