Rectification of a mistake in payment of salary does not amount to a reduction in rank attracting Article 311 of the Constitution.

JUDGMENT :- This is a plaintiff's appeal from the judgment and decree of the learned Additional Senior Sub-Judge, with enhanced appellate power, Delhi, affirming the judgment and decree of the Court of first instance dismissing the plaintiff's suit for a declaration that his alleged reversion to the post of a semi-skilled labourer in the grade of Rs. 35-1-60 from the grade of Rs. 55-130 is illegal, ultra vires and void, and that he continues to be a skilled labourer in the grade of Rs. 55-130 as a pump engine driver and also entitled to receive his pay in the grade of Rs. 55-130 from 1st January 1962, to the date of decree as well as in future.

2. It is unnecessary to give various details of the plaintiffs prior history. Suffice it to say that, according to him, he was confirmed to the post of a skilled labourer as a pump engine driver at Shakurbasti in the pay scale of Rs. 55-130 from 1st January, 1947. The defendant-respondent has, on the other hand, pleaded that the plaintiff, on joining the East Punjab Railway, was posted as an assistant pump engine driver at Shakur Basti and has continued as such in the semi-skilled grade. Payment of higher salary to the plaintiff, according to the defendant's plea, was due to a mistake, and that rectification of the mistake does not amount to a reduction in the rank attracting Article 311 of the Constitution. The short question, therefore, which falls for consideration, is whether the plaintiff was confirmed as a pump engine driver and, therefore, a skilled labourer, or his substantive post was that of an assistant pump engine driver, which is admittedly the post of an unskilled labourer.

3. Both the Courts below have come to the conclusion that the plaintiff has all along been an unskilled labourer and was never confirmed as a skilled labourer.

4. On second appeal in this Court the learned counsel for the appellant has very strongly argued that since he had been paid right from 1st January, 1947 at the rate permissible to a skilled labourer, it must be held that he was employed as a skilled labourer and his reversion to the scale of an unskilled labourer on 3rd January, 1962, retrospectively, amounts to a punishment within the contemplation of Art. 311 of the Constitution and, therefore, open to challenge in the present proceedings. Main- if not sole - reliance on behalf of the appellant has been placed on Exhibit P. 6, which is a statement showing the rates of pay provisionally fixed in the prescribed scales of pay and refixed as a result of finalisation, etc. This document is dated 23rd December, 1953, and it shows against the name of the plaintiff that his scale of pay was Rs. 35-60 with effect from 1st January, 1947, and he was getting Rs. 36 per month. This was the rate both provisionally fixed and refixed in the prescribed scale and further increments revised. He was, however, granted the officiating pay scale of Rs. 55-130; and he was actually getting Rs. 55 per month, according to this document. This was admittted by the plaintiff. It is argued that the fact, that the plaintiff was officiating in the pay scale of Rs. 55-130, shows that he was a skilled labourer. Support for this submission has been sought from a Single Bench decision of the Punjab High Court in Harbans Lal Amar Chand v. State of Punjab, AIR 1966 Punj 46. But in that decision all that was held was, so far as helpful to the appellant, that the direction, as to refund of salary received earlier on account of a provisional promotion, which was later cancelled, was hit by the provisions of Article 311(2) of the Constitution. The reported case does not support the appellant's submission that he should be considered to have been substantively appointed a skilled labourer. The decision of the Supreme Court in the State of Punjab v. Jagdip Singh, AIR 1964 SC 521 on which also reliance has been placed, does not seem to be of much assistance to the appellant. Of course, this decision does lay down that it is always t