The denial of S.A.C.P. benefits to doctors under the Employees State Insurance Scheme violated Article 14 of the Constitution, as they perform the same duties as their counterparts in the Provincial Medical Health Service.

JUDGMENT

Saral Srivastava, J.

Heard Sri R. C. Singh, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Sri N. D. Shukla, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri R. S. Umrao, learned Standing Counsel for the State-respondents.

2. The petitioner by means of present writ petition has assailed the order dated 25.10.2019 passed by Principal Secretary, Department of Labour- respondent No.1 rejecting the representation for grant of benefit of Special Assured Career Progression (for short 'S.A.C.P.') Scheme which has been made applicable for the doctors of Provincial Medical Health Service (hereinafter referred to 'P.M.H.S.'). Further direction has been sought to the respondent to extend the benefit of S.A.C.P. to the doctors of Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Service U.P. in terms of Government Order dated 26.02.2015 from the date it has been made applicable to the doctors of P.M.H.S. i.e. w.e.f. December, 2008.

3. The petitioner is a doctor working under the Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Services U.P. The Employees State Insurance Corporation (hereinafter referred to 'E.S.I.C.') has been established under section 3 of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 (referred as E.S.I. Act, 1948) which comes under the Ministry of Labour, Union of India. The E.S.I.C. runs its hospitals and provides the medical services to the hospitals which are covered under E.S.I. Act, 1948. Further case of the petitioner is that before June, 1985, the services to the hospitals were provided through Provincial Medical and Health Services, U.P., but vide Government Order dated 10.06.1985 issued by the State of U.P., the P.M.H.S. was bifurcated and a new department namely Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Service U.P. was created. The employees of Labour Medical Services are under the control of Labour Department of State of U.P. After the creation of new department under the Government Order dated 10.06.1985, the doctors of P.M.H.S. were required to submit their option as to whether they want to continue to work in the parent department or they want to be transferred to the newly created department namely Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Service U.P. Certain doctors who have been working in P.M.H.S. opted to work in new department namely Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Service U.P. with the hope that they would have better promotional avenues etc.

4. The further case of the petitioner is that all the employees including the petitioner working in Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Service U.P. and Medical Officers working in the department of P.M.H.S. discharge the same duty and there is no difference in the nature of job, therefore, Doctors/Medical Officers of both departments namely Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Service U.P. and P.M.H.S. stand on equal footing. It is further stated that whenever any benefit like revision or up-gradation and sanction of new pay scale etc. were provided by the State Government to the Doctors of P.M.H.S., the same benefit are also extended to the Medical Officers/Doctors of Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Service U.P. Even special allowances like Non-Practicing Allowance and Vehicle Allowance, which are given to doctors of P.M.H.S., are also given to the doctors of Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Service U.P.

5. It appears that Central Government while accepting the recommendation of 6th Pay Commission