The main legal point established in the judgment is the entitlement of employees under the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911 to be paid for Saturdays on which they worked at the octroi check-posts and barriers, compared to their colleagues in the offices of the Municipal Committees.

S.B.MAJMUDAR, J.

(1) DELAY condoned. All matters except C.A. No. 1500 of 2000

(2) LEAVE granted in the Special Leave Petitions (C) Nos. 16401 of 1997, 2015 of 1998, 2017 of 1998 and 3232-3235 of 1998.

(3) THESE appeals were heard finally and are being disposed of by this common judgment. The common question which arise for our consideration in these appeals runs as under :

"WHETHER the clerks and peons working at octroi check-posts and barriers run by the concerned respondent Municipal Committees constituted and functioning under the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911 for short the Act) are entitled to be paid for each of the Saturday on which they worked at the octroi check-posts and barriers while their colleagues in the offices of the concerned Municipal Committees were permitted to enjoy those Saturdays as holidays."

(4) THIS question is posed for our consideration though a larger challenge to the actions of the concerned Municipal Committees of denying the facility of enjoying national holidays and festival holidays was also on the anvil of scrutiny of the High Court. These questions were considered by a Full Bench of the High Court and a common decision was rendered in all these matters to the effect that as the clerks and peons working in the offices and not availed of the benefit of compensatory holidays in lieu of national holidays and festival holidays and had also not availed the benefit of cycle and uniform allowance which were available to the clerks and peons working at the octroi check-posts and barriers, there is no question of any discrimination inter-se these two categories of employees, though belonging to the same institution and having a common seniority and common pay scales and in common cadres. The grievances made by the writ petitioners before the High Court were rejected and the writ petitions were dismissed. That is how these appeals have been filed by the aggrieved writ petitioners.

(5) THOUGH a wider canvass was earlier placed for our consideration regarding the aforesaid grievances, ultimately, learned counsel for the appellants, the original writ petitioners, fairly stated that they are confining their grievance in the present proceedings only to the limited question as to whether, for the 52 Saturdays on which they worked at the relevant time at the octroi check-posts and barriers while these 52 Saturdays were enjoyed by their similarly situated colleagues in the offices of the concerned Municipal Committees, the appellants were entitled to be paid extra wages for all those Saturdays on which they worked. It is this limited question which will be examined by us in this judgment.

(6) WE may mention at the outset that learned counsel for the appellants did not raise their contention regarding discrimination meted out to the appellants on the ground that they were not given the benefit of national and festival holidays as compared to their counterparts in the offices of the concerned Municipal Committees as there is a finding reached by the High Court and for which there is no dispute and also in view of the agreement between the parties, that compensatory leave was granted to them in lieu of non-availing of facility of festival and national holidays and also in view of other facilities like cycle allowance and uniform given to the octroi staff. Therefore, they concentrated on the grievance regarding non-grant of benefit of 52 Saturdays on which their counterparts in the offices of the Municipal Committees were not required to work and were enjoying these holidays. We may mention that this grievance was not expressly canvassed before that High Court and this would have required us to remand the proceedings for re-consideration of this point by the High Court but for the fact that learned counsel for the parties agreed before us that to put an end to this simmering controversy which is pending since years, this contention may be finally decided on