Supreme Court on Friday passed an interim order that no coercive action should be taken against the members of the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association for not complying with the Maharashtra Govt direction to display names of shop
Contents News/Article Date: 4th November 2022
Relating to which Act: The Maharashtra Shops and Establishments (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 2017
Applicable to which State: Maharashtra
Type: The Supreme Court on Friday passed an interim order that no coercive action should be taken against the members of the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association for not complying with the Maharashtra Government’s direction to display names of shops and establishments in Marathi written in the Devanagari script against Municipal Corporation in Mumbai notices to shop owners who did not have signboards in the Marathi language.
Pertains to The order will cover only the members of the petitioner association
Relevance of this news: Karma Management Global Consulting Solutions Pvt. Ltd is in the business of Payroll, Outsourcing, and Regulatory Compliances since its inception in 2004 since then, has brought in a lot of efficiencies and technological upgradations with experts on its role, to ease the hassles of Payroll Processing, Temp Staffing On-boarding Management, Regulatory and Payroll compliances by providing customized solutions to all its elite clients.
- The Maharashtra shops commercial establishments act 2017 came into force on December 20, 2017, and successfully replaced the 1948 Maharashtra Shops and Establishment Act
- Further, an amendment was introduced by the Ministry on March 17, 2022, wherein certain specifications were highlighted writ font size, etc. for the existing display-related compliance.
- Further, on June 06, 2022, a circular was issued by Brihan Municipal Corporation (BMC) wherein shops and establishments under the jurisdiction of BMC are required to comply with the following points by June 30, 2022
- All Commercial establishments should display their Name board in Marathi written in Devanagari script and if the signboard displays the name of any shop or business in more than one language, the one in Devanagari should be in bigger font size.
- The Name board should be displayed in the Marathi language in front of the establishment.
- The size of the font should not be smaller than any other language and should be in Marathi.
- All the Establishments where liquor is severed or sold must not bear the names of legendary personalities and historical forts.
In this instance, Karma does a lot of work for its clients who are covered by the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments Act, all the obligations are fulfilled including the filing of returns and maintenance of registers. Here again, it has advised all its clients about this amendment and compliance with the signboard in Marathi.
Subject: The Supreme Court on Friday passed an interim order that no coercive action should be taken against the members of the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association for not complying with the Maharashtra Government’s direction to display names of shops and establishments in Marathi written in the Devanagari script.
For greater details, appended below is the complete news item
The Supreme Court on Friday passed an interim order that no coercive action should be taken against the members of the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association for not complying with the Maharashtra Government’s direction to display names of shops and establishments in Marathi written in the Devanagari script.
A bench comprising Justices KM Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy passed the interim order while considering a petition filed by the Federation against the Bombay High Court’s order of upholding the State Government’s decision.
The bench said that it cannot pass a general order of “no coercive action” and specified that the order will cover only the members of the petitioner association. The counsel appearing for the State of Maharashtra sought time for filing a counter affidavit. The Court has posted the case to November 18.
Before the High Court, the Association had argued that there was no rationale in the State government’s decision to impose the said condition and that the state’s choice of language cannot be foisted on shops.
However, while dismissing the petition the Bombay High Court bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Madhav Jamdar had observed that to say that there was some sort of invidious discrimination was wholly untrue.
“A Public purpose is sought to be achieved by the said Rule. There is a broader public purpose and rationale. Marathi may be the official language of the state government, but it is an undeniably common language and mother tongue of the state… It has its own extremely rich and diverse cultural traditions extending to every field of endeavour from literature to theatre and beyond. There are texts in Marathi which are expressed and written in Devanagri,” the division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Madhav Jamdar observed.
“If any retailer wishes to carry out trade in Maharashtra, it shall be subject to conditions that the government seeks to impose uniformly on all. Clearly, there is no violation of Article 14 (Right to equality before law) of the Constitution, “the court held.
It also said that the rights under Article 19 of the Constitution were not unfettered and contained reasonable restrictions. The bench added that it was mindful of the fact that in some parts of the country, there was a practice of not using any other script other than the local script but that was not the case here and that no other language was prohibited in Maharashtra. It had added that Devanagari-Marathi documents were permitted even in the High Court unless translations are required by a particular bench or court, though the language of the court was English.
Case Title: Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association and Anr v. The State of Maharashtra| SLP (civil) 10629/2022