Judgment

Thomas, J.-Some Judges whose function was dispensation of justice had to approach the High Court for justice based on the celebrated doc­trine “equal pay for equal work” but they were non-suited by a Division Bench of that High Court. They were Judges of higher judici­ary in the subordinate level. They have now come to the Supreme Court with this appeal by special leave. It is interesting that, in the meanwhile, two of them have become Judges of the same High Court of Bombay as efflux of a decade in between has changed the hierarchiel status of the parties who initiated this legal action. When they filed the writ petition in the High Court they were District and Sessions Judges. One of them has since retired from service but the cause which they espoused survives.

2. The nub of their grievance is this: When the scale of pay of their counterparts in the Union Territory of Delhi was increased, appel­lants, while working in the same cadre in the Union Territory of Goa, were not given that pay scale. It infringes, according to them, the principle enshrined in the Constitution.

3. Facts are simple. On 20.12.1961 the Territories of Goa, Daman and Diu were liberated from the suzerainty of Portugal. In 1962, Goa become part of the Union Territory of India. Appellants were District Judges posted in the Union Territory of Goa. On 3.9.1981 the pay-scale of judicial officers (in the category of Additional District and Sessions Judges) in the Union Territories was the same Rs. 1200-2000/-. In 1982 the Union Territory of Delhi increased the scale of pay of such Judges to Rs. 2000-3200/- while their counterparts in the Union Territory of Goa were not given any increase to keep the scale on par with the former. When the Fourth Pay Commission was formed representations were made by the judicial officers of Goa to rectify the anomaly which, according to them, came into existence for the first time in 1982, but no relief was provided to them. On the con­trary, the recommendations of the Pay Commission were for raising the scale of pay of Delhi Judges to Rs. 4500-5700/- while that of Goa Judges was raised only to Rs. 3000-5000/-.

4. On 30.5.1987, Goa became a State separate from Union Territory. It is conceded that appellants cannot claim parity with the Delhi judi­cial officers after the date. Hence the grievance of the appellants was confined to the period between 1.3.1982 and 31.3.1987. Appellants therefore filed writ petitions before the High Court for necessary reliefs to be granted to them.

5. The Division Bench of the High Court while declining to grant the reliefs advanced the following reasons:

“It is now well-settled by a catena of decisions of the Supreme Court and this Court that the doctrine of “equal work, equal pay” is a well-accepted norm in administration of services under the control of the Governments. To enable the employees to claim an advantage, it is essential to establish that the posts of judicial officers in Delhi and Goa are equal or are comparable before demanding that the pay scales available to Delhi officers should be made available to Goa officers. The only averment in the petition is that the posts in Delhi and Goa Judicial Service carry the same duties, responsibilities and nature of work being identical, the Goa officers are entitled to identical pay scales as those available to Delhi officers. The aver­ment made in the petition is not supported by any material whatsoever and it would be impossible to draw on imagination to hold that the nature of the duties of officers in Delhi and Goa are identical.”

6. Learned Judges repelled the contention that since Delhi and Goa were Union Territories it must be assumed that the nature of the duties and responsibilities of the District and Sessions Judges were identical and consequently both must get same benefit. They took the view that “merely because the officers in the two Territories are in judicial service it cannot be even suggested that the nature of the duties a