The judgment and decree passed by a Court of competent jurisdiction cannot be defeated merely because in another case Hon'ble the Supreme Court has taken a contrary view.

1. The Union of India has preferred this appeal against judgment and order dated 17.11.2000 rendered by the learned Single Judge of this Court while allowing writ petition No.183 of 2000. The Writ Court has accepted the prayer made by the writ petitioner-respondents for quashing orders dated 02.04.1998, 06.10.1999 and 13.01.2000 seeking to effect recovery from the writ petitioner-respondents in respect of Night Duty Allowance paid to them.

2. Brief facts of the case are that the writ petitioner-respondents filed OA No.775/JK/1995 before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench (Circuit Bench at Jammu) (for brevity `the Tribunal'). The prayer made by them was to release the `night duty allowance' from May 1992 onwards along with overtime allowance. The aforesaid prayer made by the writ petitioner-respondents was allowed as is patent from perusal of paras 6 and 7 of the order passed by the Tribunal, which are set out below in extenso:-

"6. We have examined the contentions of both the parties. We find that the chowkidars as a category has been allowed to draw the NDA, as per the Ministry of defence order and the duties of the Chowkidars cannot be said to be having inseparable characteristic of night duty. Chowkidar as the nomenclature itself suggests can be employed during day or night and no duties, job contents of element of their duties have been prescribed by the respondents and brought to our notice and thus, we find that there is no reason as to why this category cannot be given the benefit of Night Duty Allowance. Just because the Engineer-in-Chief's office do not find it possible to include them in the category of persons eligible for grant of NDA, is no argument. This proposition is totally untenable as the authority which had earlier granted them NDA was Ministry of Defence and any subordinate office to that Ministry cannot stop the same.

7. In view of above, we find that the claim of the applicants is totally acceptable and the payment of NDA cannot be denied to them now. Accordingly, the O.A. succeeds. The applicants, 10 in No. in this O.A., are entitled to the payment of NDA from the date it was withdrawn from them. They shall be paid all the arrears with interest @12% per annum on the withheld amount. This order shall be complied with within three months from the date of receipt of copy of the same, by the respondents. No costs."

3. Despite the aforesaid order, the appellant issued recovery notice on 02.04.1998 followed by subsequent letters dated 06.10.1999 and 03.01.2000. The aforesaid recovery notices and withdrawal of `night duty allowance' were challenged by the writ petitioner-respondents in writ petition No.183 of 2000 on the ground that once the judgment rendered by the Tribunal has attained finality then the subsequent view taken by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in any other case would not deprive them of the benefit given by the judgment of the Tribunal. The view of the learned Writ Court is discernible from the following paras of the judgment:-

"Sole question that needs consideration in this case whether on the basis of judgment passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh in favour of the petitioners which has admittedly become final interparties , respondents can take any advantage of the Undertakings obtained from the petitioners as extracted hereinabove. And at the same time despite such finality respondents can be permitted to say that since judgment of the Bangalore bench of Central Administrative Tribunal, has been upset by the Supreme Court of India, they are well advised to either stop and or effect recovery of the Night Duty Allowance as already paid.

In this behalf it may be appropriate to observe that so far judgment passed by the Supreme Court of India is concerned it is law of land and thus binds every one. There can be no dispute about this legal proposition. Still in the background of this case what remains to be seen is that whether the respondents can be pe