IMPORTANT POINT
Classification on the basis of educational qualifications is reasonable and permissible.

JUDGMENT

Writ Petition (C) No. 584 of 1989

B.P. Jeevan Reddy, J.-In this writ petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, three reliefs are asked for by as many as 748 petitioners. The reliefs sought for are :

"(a) Issue writ in the nature of mandamus or any appropriate writ, order or direction that the petitioners be treated to be in the service of the respondents from the date of their initial appointment irrespective of there being artificial break in their services during the period.

(b) Issue an appropriate writ, order or direction to the respondents to put the petitioners on regular pay scales to that of primary school teachers in the Education Department of Haryana plus other consequential benefits from the date of their initial appointment and further direct the respondents to pay the petitioners the difference in arrears of salary accrued to them from the date of their initial appointment.

(c) Issue by appropriate writ, order or direction that the department of Audit Education and Non-formal Education is a permanent department of the State and the petitioners are regular teachers in the department appointed against sanctioned posts of Instructors."

2. On the date of the filing of the writ petition (March 1989) the petitioners were working as "under matriculates instructors in the Adult Literacy Programme" devised by the Government of Haryana. They were being paid a lump sum amount of Rs. 200 per month as salary. They had put in 5 to 6 years service and have been performing their duties to the satisfaction of all concerned. Their submission is that when marticulate instructors approached this Court for similar reliefs, they were granted certain reliefs though not all the reliefs asked for by them. The reference is to the judgment of this Court in Jaipal and others v. State of Haryana and others1 wherein this Court directed that the "matriculate instructors are entitled to the same pay scale as sanctioned to squad teachers." This Court had also directed that the salary of the said petitioners shall be fixed in the same scale as that of the squad teachers, having regard to the length of their service with effect from their date of initial appointment by ignoring the break in service on account of six months fresh appointments. It was further directed by this Court that the said petitioners witll be entitled to the said pay scales in accordance with law notwithstanding the break in service that might have taken place. The said directions were made effective with effect from September 1, 1985. However, the claim for regularisation of their services put forward by the said petitioners was rejected, since the very project was likely to last only till 1990. The present petitioners case is that though they are non-matriculates they too have been performing the very same duties as were being performed by matriculate teachers (petitioners in Jaipal). The petitioners invoke the principle of equal pay for equal work . According to them, except the difference in the matter of educational qualificatitons there is no other distinction between the post held and the duties and functions performed by the petitioners in Jaipal and the petitioners herein. They have set out in the writ petition the several duties performed by them. Reliance is also placed upon certain other decisions of this Court viz., Randhir Singh v. Union of India2; Dhirendra Chamoli v. State of U.P.3 and Surinder Singh v. Engineer-in-Chief, CPWD.4

3. The doctrine of equal work for equal pay is recognised by this Court as a facet of the equality clause contained in Article 14 of the Constitution. The first of the several decisions on the subject is Randhir Singh v. Union of India.5 The said doctrine has been dealt with by this Court in several later decisions including State of Madhya Pradesh and Another v. Pramod Bhartiya and Others6 decided by a three-member Bench of which one of us (B.P. Jeevan Reddy,