IMPORTANT POINT
No further direction or order of Supreme Court is required in so far as 1987 Package and 1989 Settlement between service doctors and the U.O.I. However, as to the unaccepted recommendations of the Tikoo Committee, the recommendations of the Vth Pay Commission may be awaited.

JUDGMENT

Hansaria, J.-The petitioner is basically an association of Service Doctors who are about 10,000 in number, of whom about 4,500 are members of Central Health Service. This Service is divided into four sub-cadres : (1) General Duty Medical Officers ; (2) Specialist non-teaching ; (3) Specialist teaching and (4) Public Health.

2. The Service Doctors have been agitating, soon after the recommendations of the IVth Central Pay Commission in 1986, about cadre review. To give teeth to the agitational programme, a Joint Action Council of Service Doctors Organisations was formed, which body is the petitioner herein. A delegation of this body had gone on indefinite strike in July 1987, after they felt dis-satisfied with the working etc., of the High Power Committee which had been set up in the wake of the unsatisfactory recommendations of the IVth Pay Commission. A package of benefits was then announced by the Health Ministry which included some interim reliefs. As these benefits were not implemented, further agitation was launched, which ended in a Memorandum of settlement of 21.8.1989. One of the terms of the settlement was setting up of a high power committee, which was notified in February, 1990. Constitution of this Committee was changed in May, 1990. Shri R.K. Tikoo, Secretary (Co-ordination) in the Cabinet Secretariat, was made the Chairman and the terms of the reference were approved by the Cabinet. The Committee deliberated on the terms and submitted its report on 31st October, 1990. The present writ petition was filed on 3rd April, 1991 as the recommendations had not been fully implemented.

3. The grievance of the petitioner is that, not to speak of not implementing all the recommendations of the Tikoo Committee, some of the terms incorporated in the Memorandum of Settlement are yet to be fully implemented. Some grievance has also been made about non-implementation of what has been described as 1987 Package Deal.

Grievance relating to 1987 Package Deal:

4. The grievances on this aspect are three fold : (1) non-inclusion of Non-practicing Allowance (NPA) while determining entitlement for residential accommodation ; (2) non-creation of required number of posts of Chief Medical Officer, pay scale for which was agreed to be Rs. 3,700-5,000/- ; and (3) non-giving of scale of Rs. 4,500-5,700/- to the Associate Professors on completion of the required period of service.

5. The case of the Union of India regarding the first grievance is that the NPA is not taken into account for determining the eligibility of accommodation in view of Government of India s order under the Allotment of Government Residences (General Fool in Delhi) Rules, 1963. The further case is that even special pay is not taken into account for this purpose. The petitioner s stand, however, is that as the NPA is treated as part of basic pay for purposes of computation of dearness allowance, terminal benefits, house building advance, travelling concession benefits etc., there is no justifiable reason to exclude this allowance for the purpose of entitlement to residential accommodation. It is urged that merely because the special pay is not taken into account for this purpose, does not provide a cogent reason for excluding non-practicing allowance inasmuch as special pay is not treated as part of basic pay for the aforesaid purposes as well.

6. According to us, the present is basically a question of policy and the claim in this regard is not founded on any right as such. In so far as the policy is concerned, there may be some justification for excluding the non-practicing allowance for the purpose at hand because this allowance is seemingly not paid to all the Service Doctors. So, if this allowance is included for the purpose at hand, the same may be dis-advantageous even to some Service Doctors. We do not say more than this, as this matter is presently under examination of the Vth Pay Commission.

7. In so far as the creation of required number of posts of Chief Med