Mumbai: NCLT Staff Strike Over Salary Delays, Disrupting Proceedings

The contractual and outsourced staff of the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) have gone on strike over salary issues. In a memorandum, the staff stated that, effective Tuesday, they will refrain from performing their professional duties until their grievances are addressed through appropriate channels.

The reasons cited for the strike include non-payment of December salaries, irregular and delayed salary payments over the past six months, and no salary revision since the bench was established in 2016. A total of 156 staff members are participating in the strike, comprising 86 contractual and 70 outsourced employees.

Advocate Ashish Pyasi, founding partner at Aendri Legal, said, “NCLT proceedings were disrupted on Tuesday as staff, including stenographers, were unavailable to record orders, forcing judges to give adjournments. The issue must be resolved immediately, or it will bring NCLT operations to a standstill, causing significant hardship to litigants.”

FPJ accessed the memorandum, which highlighted three key points:

Non-payment of salaries to contractual and outsourced staff of the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai Bench, for the month of December 2024, as of the date of this memorandum.

Irregular and delayed payment of salaries to all contractual and outsourced staff of the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai Bench, over the past six months.

No revision of salaries since the inception of the National Company Law Tribunal, in the fiscal year of 2016.

The memorandum further stated, “As a matter of ethics and general principles of professional engagement in any government organization, we hereby reiterate our unified demand for payment of our rightful wages. We urge the concerned representatives of the institution to address the same through proper channels of communication in a timely manner.”