The Supreme Court today slammed the Centre for not giving compensation to workers for delayed payment of work under MNREGA scheme in drought-like situation and said it "does not behove a welfare state" as "social justice has been thrown out of the window".
The apex court said it was extremely unfortunate that government had no provision for providing compensation to the workers and it was also regrettable that it cleared the pending wage bill for 2015-16, only during the pendency of the case and "the government of India must shape up in this regard".
"…A worker is entitled to compensation at the rate of 0.05 per cent per day for delayed payment of the wages due. We are quite pained to note that the government of India has made no provision for this compensation while releasing the wages for 2015-16 of Rs 7,983 crores.
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