IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal point established is the requirement for detailed reasons and proper adjudication in line with the rule of law, emphasizing the importance of due process and the need for thorough consideration of the facts and applicable law.

JUDGMENT

Sanjib Banerjee, CJ. - The matter brings out the sometimes atrocious quality of adjudication in the quasi-judicial tribunal system that is the flavour of the day in this country.

2. This is the fifth or sixth round of litigation between the same parties and a relatively simple issue as to whether or not the respondent employees in this case are entitled to the same benefits as Translators in the Central Secretariat has not been conclusively decided over a protracted period of time.

3. The judgment and order impugned in this case is dated March 15, 2019 and runs into five pages after discounting the cause-title pages. In the eight paragraphs of the order spread over five pages, the first five paragraphs narrate the history of the litigation before the sixth and seventh paragraphs indicate the result, without any modicum of the adjudication that ought to have been undertaken apparent therefrom, apart from the careless manner in which it is expressed:

'6. We have considered the issue. It is not subject matter of examination of the issues at this stage so far as this Bench is concerned. The issues have already examined, considered and passed orders more than once in favour of the applicants. Accordingly, Fresh Speaking Order No. A/Legal/Vinod Kr. Nautiyal/2016/1390 dated 19.12.2016 is hereby set aside and quashed. The applicants shall be granted pay parity as demanded by them as ordered by this Bench in O.A. No. 295/2010 and O.A. No. 040/00379/2014.

'7. In this connection, the applicants had brought out similar judgments in favour of similarly situated persons delivered by Co-ordinate Bench of Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench in O.A. No.402/2006 (Suman Lata Bhatia & Ors. v. Union of India and Ors.) and Central Administrative Tribunal, Calcutta Bench, Kolkata in O.A. No.615/2006 (Sri Dinesh Kr. Rai & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.)'.

4. There is no doubt that there is a sentence in the sixth paragraph to the effect that the issues had already been 'examined, considered and passed orders (sic) more than once in favour of the applicants'. However, nothing in the preceding five paragraphs indicate how the issues may have been previously considered or conclusively pronounced upon. Indeed, the impugned notification of December 19, 2016 was issued upon a previous order requiring the appropriate authorities to consider the matter afresh and pass a speaking order. It was such speaking order which was reflected in the impugned communication of December 19, 2016. There was no previous adjudication of such speaking order, nor of the reasons contained therein for the Tribunal in this case to observe that the issues involved had 'already examined, considered and passed orders (sic) more than once in favour of the applicants'.

5. Even the seventh and penultimate paragraph of the impugned judgment and order does not reveal any application of mind as it merely records certain judgments where there may have been orders passed in similar situations. However, it is elementary that when the ratio decidendi in another matter is to be applied to a present matter, there are certain parameters which are to be followed and the most basic of them is the finding as to the applicability of the ratio to the case in hand. The applicability of the legal principle laid down in a previous judgment depends on the facts and the law to be applied to the facts. Except in the very exceptional case where the applicability of the decided principle is obvious, the matter calls for a minimum discussion which is absent in this case.

6. The matter has lingered for more than a decade. The initial order on the issue as to whether Translators in Assam Rifles ought to be covered by the pay-scale offered to Translators in the Central Secretariat was decided by a rather cryptic and equally unreasoned order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Guwahati Bench passed on September 9, 2011. Upon the Union challenging the order before the Gauhati High Court, the Tribu