ORDER :

1. The respondent herein was serving as a Live Stock Inspector under the petitioner-Rajkot District Panchayat. On his completion of 9 years of service in the said cadre, he was granted higher pay scale with effect from 01.06.1991 vide order dated 28.12.1992. The District Development Officer by his order dated 30.12.1998 directed withdrawal of the said benefit of higher pay-scale on the ground that the respondent refused to accept promotion. The order dated 15.05.1998 by which he was granted promotion as Extension Officer contained a condition that on refusal to accept the promotion, the higher pay-scale benefit would be cancelled.

1.1 Aggrieved by the aforesaid order dated 30.12.1998 cancelling/withdrawing the higher grade, the respondent approached the Gujarat Civil Services Tribunal, Gandhinagar by way of Appeal No. 131 of 1999. The Tribunal held that the withdrawal of higher pay scale was bad and allowed the appeal of the respondent and set aside the order dated 30.12.1998 and directed reimbursement of the financial loss suffered.

2. In the present writ petition, the aforementioned order dated 12/10/2001 of the Gujarat Civil Services Tribunal is challenged.

3. Learned advocate Mr. H.S. Munshaw appears for the petitioner. Learned advocate Mr. Asit B. Joshi working the brief for learned advocate Mr. P.M. Dave, is for the respondent.

3.1 In course of the submissions, learned advocate for the petitioner assailed the impugned judgment and order of the Tribunal from the root, by submitting that the order of the Tribunal was without jurisdiction as it could not have adjudicated upon the dispute regarding higher pay-scale in view of Section-11 of the Gujarat Civil Services Tribunal Act, 1992 and the matters specified in the Schedule to the said Act. According to learned advocate for the petitioner, the impugned order, irrespective of its merits, could not sustain on that preliminary ground.

3.2 Learned advocate for the respondent countered the contention of the petitioner by submitting that the issue of jurisdiction was not raised before the Tribunal, therefore, the petitioner cannot be permitted to raise such a contention for the first time in this petition. He endeavoured to justify the order of the Tribunal on merits.

4. Going into the merits of the matter is not necessary, because there is a substance in the contention of learned counsel for the petitioner, as the point raised is no longer res-integra in view of the decision of this Court in (i) State of Gujarat vs. B.L. Trivedi and Another, Special Civil Application No. 1852 of 2004 decided on 27.08.2004; (ii) State of Gujarat vs. Geeta D. Patel, Special Civil Application No. 13653 of 2005 decided on 26.10.2005 and (iii) State of Gujarat vs. B.M. Anjara, Special Civil Application No. 7350 of 2000 decided on 25.04.2012.

4.1 In State of Gujarat vs. B.M. Anjara (Supra), the other two decisions mentioned herein were relied on and it was observed as under:-

“Section 10 of the Act provides that the tribunal shall have jurisdiction to hear and decide (a) appeals filed by specified civil servants under section 11; (b) any application filed by the State Government under section 12 and (c) appeals and applications transferred to it under section 21. Under Section 11 appeals lie in respect of the matters specified in the Schedule. The Schedule appended for the provisions of Sections 11, 12, 19 and 21 of the Act. It specified the following matters.

(1) Dismissal or removal from service or reduction in rank, (2) Reduction of pay or to a lower time-scale of pay, (3) Non-confirmation in service, (4) Non promotion to a higher post, (5) Reversion to a lower post, (6) Discharge from Service, (7) Compulsory retirement, (8) Reduction to a lower stage in the time-scale of pay for a specified period, (9) Censure, (10) Reduction in or withholding the pension or denial of the maximum pension admissible under the rules, (11) Withholding of increments, (12) Stoppage at Efficiency Bar in time-scale of pay