Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan, J.

1. These writ petitions under Article 227 of the Constitution of India are by different employees under the Southern Naval Command. Since the disputes relating to all of them qua the establishment were based on a particular question of law, which tilts the scales either way, the Central Administrative Tribunal heard the original applications of all the petitioners in a consolidated manner and issued a common order. We also adopt the same procedure of consolidation for hearing, having regard to the facts, which we note hereunder.

2. All the employees involved in this bunch of litigations were imposed with penalty of reduction of pay by one stage for one year in the relevant scale of pay in respect to each of them and with a direction that the incumbent concerned will not earn increments of pay during the period of reduction and that on the expiry of that period, the reduction will have the effect of postponing the future increments of pay. The effect of that penalty operated from 1.1.2007 to 31.12.2007.

3. Later, in 2008, the pay scales were revised with retrospective effect from 1.1.2006. The establishment then took the view that whatever they might have suffered till 31.12.2007, the incumbents are liable to suffer further reduction from the payments at par with the rates to which the scales of pay stood enhanced by the revision made in 2008 with effect from 1.1.2006. Consequential proposals for recovery were also ordered. At the instance of the employees, the Tribunal upheld their plea that there cannot be any recovery without any predecisional opportunity of hearing. Therefore, the second limb of their prayers before the Tribunal stood granted. However, the Tribunal did not come to the aid of the employees to uphold their plea that they were not liable to be visited with any further reduction of money from out of their emoluments on a ground referable to the penalty of reduction of pay by one stage for one year in the relevant scale of pay which had operated from 1.1.2007 to 31.12.2007. Hence, these writ petitions by the employees under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

4. We have heard the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners and the learned Adv.John T. Paul, representing the Assistant Solicitor General on behalf of the establishment, quite in extenso, on the different aspects of the matter.

5. The learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners argued, among other things, that the employees had suffered the entire penalty much before the revision of pay scales which, actually, came into force only in 2008 though with effect from 1.1.2006. He accordingly argued that there was nothing left, for the incumbents to be forced to suffer further on a penalty which was imposed and suffered.

6. Per contra, it is argued by Adv. John T. Paul, representing on behalf of establishment, that the impact of reduction of pay by one stage would essentially have its continued impact whenever the scales of pay are revised with effect from a date prior to the date of imposition and sufferance of penalty. He, accordingly, pointed out that the learned Tribunal was justified in concluding that the incumbents were not entitled to claim that once penalty has been suffered there is no scope of modification of the same.

7. While the establishment may be justified in contending that there is no question of modification of the penalty, the fact of the matter remains that the penalty imposed was not one with cumulative effect. It was a penalty simplicitor and one falling within Fundamental Rule 29.(1) among the Fundamental Rules and Supplementary Rules (F.R.S.R). That being so, the imposition and sufferance from 1.1.2007 to 31.12.2007, that is, for a period of one year, had purged the incumbents of any indiscipline for which they were ordered to suffer the penalty. Such sufferance of penalty results in the indiscipline being purged and there was no continuing effect of the penalty order, which had dissolve