A person senior in a gradation list cannot be allowed to be paid lesser salary than his junior, as per the Supreme Court’s decision in Gurcharan Singh Grewal and another vs. Punjab State Electricity Board and others reported in (2009) 3 SCC 94.

JUDGMENT :

The Union of India through the General Manager, East Central Railway, Hajipur and other officials of the East Central Railway have filed the present writ application questioning the legality of an order dated 19.07.2019, passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Patna Bench, Patna in OA No. 050/00195/2015, whereby the Tribunal has allowed an original application filed under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985 and has directed the petitioners to consider the respondent’s case for stepping up of his pay in order to bring it at par with the pay of his juniors after following the rules governing such stepping up of pay. The petitioners have been directed by the impugned order to issue necessary orders within three months from the date of receipt of the said order.

2. The petitioners had preferred a review application before the Tribunal seeking review of the aforesaid impugned order dated 19.07.2019 mainly on the ground that the stepping up of pay was permissible only when the employees are similarly situated i.e. they belong to the same cadre and the seniority-list. The said review application registered as RA/050/00005/2020 came to be rejected by the Tribunal by an order dated 20.05.2020, which has also been put to challenge in the present writ application.

3. The pleadings are complete.

4. We have heard Mr. Anshuman Singh, learned Central Government Counsel for the petitioners and Mr. M.P. Dixit learned counsel representing the sole respondent.

5. From the pleadings on record, it appears that there is no dispute over the facts. The respondent was working as Supervisor (P.Way) in the pay-scale of Rs. 4500-7000 when he was granted promotion to the post of Senior Supervisor (P.Way) in the pay-scale of Rs. 5000-8000/-(equivalent to Rs. 9300-34000/-with Grade Pay of Rs. 4200), with the issuance of an order dated 14.01.2009 with effect from 22.03.2007.

6. This is an admitted position that the respondent’s pay, determined with effect from the date of his promotion i.e. 22.03.2007, would be less compared to such determination from the date of his next admissible increment i.e. 01.07.2007. The fact remains that upon grant of promotion the respondent’s pay was fixed with effect from the date of promotion. It was the respondent’s specific case before the Tribunal that the persons junior to him, upon promotion are getting salary upon fixation of their pay with effect from the date of the next increment. It is an admitted fact that the result of such fixation is that the persons junior to the respondent are receiving more salary than the respondent because fixation of respondent’s pay from the date of promotion i.e. 22.03.2007 has the consequence of loss of one increment.

7. In the aforesaid background, the respondent approached the Tribunal seeking a direction to the petitioners to fix the respondent’s pay on account of promotion to the post of Senior Supervisor (P.Way) from the date of next increment which he was entitled to i.e. 01.07.2007 instead of 22.03.2007 i.e. the date with effect from which he was granted promotion.

8. The respondent’s contention was rejected by the Union of India by filing written statement taking a plea that the respondent’s application was barred by limitation. The Union of India also took a plea that the respondent ought to have exercised his option at the time of promotion as was clearly mentioned in the promotion order itself.

9. In respect of Sri Manoj Kumar, with whom the respondent was claiming parity, the department took a plea before the Tribunal that he was not an employee of Samastipur Division and, therefore, the respondent’s case could not be compared with him for the purpose of deciding respondent’s claim of maintaining parity in the matter of fixation of pay.

10. The Tribunal came to a definite conclusion that the respondent was made to receive less amount of salary than what his juniors were getting, though they were posted elsewhere. The Tribunal noticed the delay on the pa