Devan Ramachandran, J.

1. This original petition has been filed by the State of Kerala and the Director of Collegiate Education, assailing the order of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal in O.A.(EKM)No. 456/2016 dated 15.02.2017, whereby directions have been issued to them to rectify the anomaly in the pay scales drawn by the respondents/applicants and that their pay scales be stepped up to be at par with their juniors.

2. The forensic issues raised in this original petition have, in fact, been answered against the State of Kerala by a Bench of this Court in W.A.No.488/2017, in which facts analogous to that of this case were presented. We will refer to the observations in the said judgment presently.

3. Before that, the sylloge of the most essential facts and circumstances is us infra.

4. We notice from the pleadings that first and second respondents/applicants are working as Associate Professors in the Maharaja's College, Ernakulam and that the third respondent is the Principal of the Government Arts and Science College, Trithala, Palakkad District.

5. The anomaly that the respondents faced, with respect to their pay scale in reference to the pay scales drawn by their juniors, was on account of the implementation of the VI UGC Scheme, which was introduced with effect from 01.01.2006. Prior to the VI UGC Scheme, the V UGC Scheme, which was brought into effect from 01.01.1996, was implemented with effect from 21.12.1999. The order implementing the V UGC Scheme has been appended on record as Annexure A2. In the said order, it has a clause in Appendix II, as Rule 4 Explanation 9, to step up the pay of the senior in case the pay fixed is at a scale lower than that of the junior on account of the implementation of the said pay revision. However, when the VI UGC Scheme was introduced, the Government issued Annexure A3 order implementing the same, but by omitting any provision with respect to the rectification of the anomaly in the pay scales drawn by the seniors and juniors.

6. On a comparison of the V and VI UGC Schemes, we notice that under the former, two advance increments are issued to persons who acquire Ph.D. on or before 01.01.2006, while under the VI UGC Scheme, three non-compounded increments are offered to persons who complete their Ph.D. on or before 01.09.2008. The difference in the increments offered and the manner in which it is implemented obviously leads to great disparity in the pay scales drawn by the juniors in comparison to the seniors. This was the case shown by the respondents/applicants before the learned Tribunal.

7. The learned Tribunal assessed the two Schemes in question and found that even though while implementing the V UGC Scheme the relevant Government Order had a provision to step up the salary of the seniors if theirs were fixed lower than their juniors, when it came to the implementation of the VI Scheme, this was conspicuously omitted when Annexure A3 order was issued by the Government. The learned Tribunal, therefore, took the view that the omission in Annexure A3 order of the provisions relating to the rectification of the anomaly of stepping up of the salary of the seniors to be par with the juniors, would not be a sufficient reason to deny such benefit to the admitted seniors who are drawing a lower scale of pay. The learned Tribunal relied upon the judgment of this Court in W.A. No. 488/2017, which we have mentioned above, wherein the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Gurcharan Singh Grewal and another v. Punjab State Electricity Board and others ((2009) 3 SCC 94) had also been specifically adverted to. Paragraph 7 of the judgment in W.A.No.488/2017 contains the declaration of this Court, which is as under:

“We have given our anxious consideration to the contentions raised by the learned Government Pleader before us. Though it is true that respondents 1 to 5 are persons who have already been granted the benefits of career advancement for having acquired their Ph.D degrees, as per the