IMPORTANT POINT
The central legal point established in the judgment is that the extension of pay scale benefits should be based on a fact-finding exercise to determine the parity of duties and functions between different sets of employees.

JUDGMENT

Sanjib Banerjee, CJ. - The appeal is directed against a judgment and order of March 19, 2020 passed on a petition under Articles 226 of the Constitution of India brought by the first respondent association, which is a body of the employees engaged in the Shillong Municipal Board. By the impugned judgment and order the writ court has, in effect, allowed the prayer in the writ petition that the employees of the Shillong Municipal Board will be entitled to the same pay scale and benefits as per the latest pay commission terms pertaining to the Meghalaya government employees.

2. The prayer in the writ petition was as follows:

'In the Premises aforesaid it is most respectfully prayed that your Lordship would be graciously pleased to issue rule, call for records and after hearing the parties be pleased to issue a writ in the nature of Mandamus directing Respondent No. 1 to provide the benefits of the recommendation of the 5th Pay commission to the Members of the Petitioner Association.'

3. In the judgment and order challenged herein by the State, the writ court has primarily referred to an industrial award of the year 1971 which, more or less, granted the same pay facilities and benefits, with some minor exceptions, to the employees of the Shillong Municipal Board at par with the State government employees. The writ court held that since such award had not been challenged before any appropriate forum and further since the benefits under the Third Pay Commission in the State had been unilaterally extended by the State to the Shillong Municipal Board employees, 'there appears to be no reason as to why the benefit of the 5th Meghalaya Pay Commission should not be extended to the employees of the Shillong Municipality ...'

4. It is, thus, that the industrial award of July 21, 1971, which was perceived to have binding effect by the writ court, needs to be seen. The order passed by the Tribunal framed the following questions:

'1. (a) Whether the demands of the workmen appearing hereinunder under the caption of Charter of Demands are justified?

(b) If not, to what relief are the workmen are entitled?'

The charter of demands runs into the first five pages of the order before the rival submissions, including as to the maintainability of the proceedings, are recorded over the next page and a half. There is no opinion as such which is rendered by the Tribunal as it was unnecessary to do so since the parties reported to the Tribunal that on July 16, 1971, the disputes were settled by way of a memorandum of settlement. The solitary aspect on which there was no agreement pertained to the ad hoc dearness allowance of Rs. 20/- per month. However, the Tribunal held that the employees of the Shillong Municipal Board were entitled to such ad hoc dearness allowance from the date it was given effect to in the case of the employees of the government.

5. On the main aspect of whether the duties of the employees of the Shillong Municipal Board were the same as the duties of the employees of the State government, such issue was not gone into, particularly in the light of the settlement and it was the entirety of the settlement executed between the Board and its employees that was set out as a part of the award. Indeed, even the most fundamental issue as to whether all the employees of the Shillong Municipal Board could be regarded as workmen for the Industrial Tribunal to exercise jurisdiction over all such employees, was also not addressed. Thus, the award of July 21, 1971 merely recorded the settlement between the parties while it decided the only aspect that was left for its consideration that since dearness allowance at a particular rate had been extended to government employees, the same benefit should be made available to the employees of the Shillong Municipal Board. The consideration of dearness allowance is quite different from the consideration as to whether groups of persons employed under different employers discharging similar or comparable dut