The court affirmed that senior employees are entitled to pay parity with juniors, prohibiting recovery of excess payments without fraud or misrepresentation.

ORDER 

BY HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE OM PRAKASAH -VII, MEMBER (J) By means of present Original Application, the applicants have sought the following reliefs:-

“(i) To quash the impugned order dated 07.02.2024 passed by the respondent NO. 3 and RBE No. 133/2019 dated 16.08.2019 of Railway Board and further be pleased to command the concerning respondents not to interfere in the peaceful working of the applicants and not to reduce the basic pay and not to recover excess amount from the applicants.

(ii) Any other reliefs as this Hon’ble Tribunal may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case to meet the ends of justice.

(iii) Award the cost of the OA to the applicants”.

2. The facts in brief in this case are that all the applicants have been initially appointed as per the recruitment Rules of the Railway Recruitment Board on the post of Assistant Loco Pilots in between the year 1987 to 1990. The eligibility criteria for the aforesaid post was High School. Presently they are posted as Chief Loco Inspectors in the respondents’ department. The selection process for the post of Chief Loco Inspectors is done from Loco Pilot (Goods), Loco Pilot (Passengers) and Loco Pilot (Mail) category subject to fulfillment of requisite conditions as laid down by the Railway Board which are as the Loco Pilot must have completed 75000 km foot plate experience and must have the good work and conduct. The cadre of Loco Pilot Goods (LPG), Loco Pilot Passenger (LPP) & Loco Pilot Mail (LPM) are one and the same because as per 6^th Pay Commission, the Grade Pay became same i.e. 9300-34800 (GP-4200) and in 7^th pay commission, it is also the same. Applicant Nos. 1 to 25 were promoted on the post of Chief Loco Inspector in the year 2009 and applicant Nos. 27 to 32 were promoted as Chief Loco Inspector in the year 2014 from the post of LPG and LPM. They were paid due arrears also. Shri J.N. Tiwari, Shri G.C. Pal and Shri Dinesh Kumar have been promoted on the post of Chief Loco Inspectors on 08.02.2016. Similarly Shri Jagat Narayan Tiwari and Shri Dinesh Kumar son of Shri Jagdish Prasad were promoted on 01.01.2016. Similarly situated employees including the applicants made representations before the competent authority requesting therein to enhance the pay of the applicants at par with their juniors who are drawing more basic pay than applicants. Thereafter vide letter dated 21.09.2017, the salary of the applicants were stepped up at par with their juniors and was fixed at Rs.102800/- directing therein to pay the arrears to the applicants as per the amended pay fixation since 01.07.2006. The Railway Board vide its RBE No. 133/2019 dated 16.08.2019 issued a clarification regarding the anomaly in fixation of pay of Chief Loco Inspectors appointed prior to 01.01.2016 with reference to their juniors appointed on or after 01.01.2016 and drawing more pay than the seniors. After promulgation of aforesaid RBE, Railway Board issued another instructions on the aforesaid issue vide RBE No. 1962/2019 dated 14.11.2019. Railway Board issued another guidelines on the aforesaid subject vide RBE No. 7/2020 dated 27.01.2020 wherein it has been clarified that the future cases of stepping up of pay of CLIs may be regulated keeping in view of fresh guidelines. Thus, in view of above, RBE No. 133/2019 have been made ineffective and inoperative in the past cases. Prayagraj Division had given the benefit of stepping up against Shri R.R. Putrana to all senior CLIs in the year 2009 when Shri R.R. Putrana was promoted to CLI from LPM category. This st