ORDER

The applicants seek the benefit of one notional increment for the purpose of calculation of their retiral dues including pension. All the applicants retired on 30th June, although in different years and retiral dues and pension have been sanctioned and allowed without the benefit one increment which they would have got in the normal course on successful completion of one year of service, had they not retired on the said date as on the next date the increment would have been added to their salary.

2. Sh. S K Gupta, learned counsel for the applicants submits that this issue has already been decided in a large number of original applications by different Benches of this Tribunal. In all these matters it has been consistently held that such employees as retire on 30th June/31st December would be entitled to the benefit of one notional increment for the purpose of their terminal benefits on retirement. He further submits that the issue has been agitated up the level of Hon’ble Apex Court and hence it has attained finality. Learned counsel produces before me an order dated 11.03.2024 in OA No. 3137/2022 which is the latest order on the subject. Accordingly, he prays that the present OA be also disposed of on the same analogy.

3. Sh. R K Sharma, learned counsel for the respondents while agreeing that the issue has engaged the attention of the Hon’ble Apex Court, draws attention to the specific prayer made by the applicants in Para 8 of the OA and submits that what the applicants have prayed for is not OA No. 1745/2019 Item No. 17/C-2 what is being argued by the learned counsel. Further, retiral benefits are to be determined in every individual case on the basis of the facts as borne out from official record of the concerned employee. The benefit extended to one employee cannot by itself be a ground for identical benefit to another employee unless the other employee establishes the entitlement of his claim.

4. I have given due consideration to the contention of the learned counsel for the respondents. I have no doubt in holding that no matter how the OA may have been drafted, the limited relief being prayed for is benefit of a notional increment for the purpose of retiral dues. The issue is no more res-integra. Moreover, it was this very Bench which passed the order in OA No. 3137/2022 two days back. There is a striking similarity between the two OAs and the present OA deserves to be decided on the same analogy. Order passed in the aforesaid OA reads as under:-

“The subject of the OA is the benefit of one notional increment for the purpose of calculation of retiral benefits including pension.

2. Learned counsel for the applicant states that consistently different benches of this Tribunal in a large number of OAs have held that the benefit of notional increment shall necessarily be extended in favour of such employees as retire on 30th June and 31st December for the purpose of computation of their retiral benefits. Thereafter, the matter has been settled up to the level of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

Accordingly, little purpose would be served in keeping the present OA pending and it should be disposed of on the same analogy.

OA No. 1745/2019 Item No. 17/C-2

3. Ms. Anupama Bansal, learned Standing Counsel on behalf of the respondents submits that the judgment of this Tribunal as also the Hon’ble Supreme Court, being referred to by the learned counsel for the applicant, would not be applicable in the instant case because the respondent is Municipal Corporation which is a statutory body governed by its own act and rules framed therein. Further, it is an elected body wherein decisions are taken collectively by the members so elected and hence, the instructions governing government servants cannot automatically be applied in the case of Municipal Corporation of Delhi employees, and the corporation itself has to take an appropriate decision especiall