RANCHI, June 1 -- In a major judicial intervention to resolve a twenty-five-year-old humanitarian crisis, the Supreme Court of India accepted the core recommendations of a high-level committee to clear the unpaid salaries and retirement benefits of thousands of employees belonging to five state-owned corporations. A bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta ruled on Friday that the division of financial liabilities between the successor states of Bihar and Jharkhand will be governed strictly by the framework finalized through the Union of India's affidavit. Initiating the background of the case, the Court observed that: "The present proceedings arise out of a prolonged and distressing humanitarian as well as legal controversy concerning the continued non-payment of salaries, retiral dues and other consequential emoluments payable to thousands of employees of five State-owned Corporations..." The apex court noted that the prolonged non-payment since the state's bifurcation in 2000 had resulted in severe destitution, starvation deaths, and suicides. Highlighting the shift from a routine administrative tangle to a severe constitutional crisis, the bench observed: "The proceedings disclosed allegations of severe deprivation, destitution and reported instances of suicides and starvation deaths amongst the affected employees and their family members owing to prolonged denial of salaries and retiral benefits. The dispute, therefore, ceased to remain a mere matter of financial adjustment between two successor States and assumed the character of a significant human rights and constitutional concern directly implicating the right to livelihood and dignity guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India." The exhaustive inquiry, conducted through twenty-five meetings by a committee headed by retired Supreme Court Judge Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, successfully verified 2,274 employees and facilitated the disbursal of lawful dues to 2,017 individuals. In its order, the judicial bench affirmed the committee's findings that employees cannot claim updated salary scales from later commissions if the entities shut down beforehand, clarifying that: "...in the absence of a subsisting employer-employee framework and in the absence of any statutory or contractual mandate extending such revisions, no enforceable legal right can accrue in favour of the employees for grant of benefits under subsequent Pay Revision Commissions." Furthermore, the court approved a structured mechanism requiring both states to directly pay outstanding Employees Provident Fund (EPF) amounts-comprising both employee and employer contributions along with statutory interest-directly to the workers or their legal heirs wherever the original accounts cannot be reactivated. Striking down any administrative excuses regarding these retirement funds, the bench emphatically declared: "...provident fund accumulations constitute a vested statutory right of the employees and partake the character of protected retiral benefits incapable of being defeated by administrative lapses, financial incapacity or procedural impediments. "Thus, the obligation to ensure disbursal of provident fund dues survives notwithstanding the dissolution or functional collapse of the Corporations concerned." While a substantial portion of the dispute stands resolved, the bench emphasized that certain critical residual issues still require independent judicial adjudication. These surviving matters include the exact determination of interest rates on delayed salary arrears, lump-sum welfare or rehabilitative compensation for daily-wage workers, and quantified monetary support for the families of employees who died during this prolonged period of financial deprivation. Commenting on the necessity of interest penalties for the extensive delays, the Court noted: "...prolonged withholding of lawful emoluments and retiral benefits has resulted in continuing financial prejudice to the affected employees and their families... award of such interest would constitute a measure of restitution and fair recompense for the inordinate delay and deprivation suffered by the employees over an extended period of time."...