The Kohima bench of the Gauhati high court has stayed Nagaland Government’s order asking govt employees to get fully vaccinated or produce Covid-19 negative reports every 15 days
The high court passed the order while hearing public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the state government’s July 17 order issued by the chief secretary.
The verdict comes days after a similar judgment by the Manipur high court.
The Nagaland government had asked the staff of the civil secretariat and directorates to get vaccinated or produce Covid-19 negative test reports every 15 days to attend office, failing which the government would stop paying their salaries beyond July 31 and they will be sent on unpaid forced leave.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the government advocates objected to the maintainability of the PIL and submitted that no interim order be passed, HT reported.
However, the court ordered a stay on the government order and directed to list the matter on August 18 along with similar other PILs on the same issue.
“Till the returnable date, fees should not be charged for testing from government employees and their salaries should not be stopped for the reason of not having being vaccinated,” the court stated.
The court also kept the question on the maintainability of the PIL open “for the sake of clarity”.