Contractual teachers performing duties identical to regularly appointed Assistant Professors are entitled to equivalent emoluments and temporary status pending regular selection, as established by the principle of equal pay for equal work.

ORDER

1.This Writ Petition has been filed seeking a direction to the respondents to absorb the petitioner as Assistant Professor in the respondent University with effect from the date of appointment, together with all consequential and other attendant benefits, in the light of the orders passed in W.A.No.898 of 2021 etc., batch dated 01.04.2025.

2. Heard, the learned counsel appearing on either side and perused the materials available on record.

3. In similar matters, this Court considered an identical request in W.P.Nos.32478 of 2024 & etc., batch, dated 19.11.2025 and held as follows:-

“22. Aggrieved by the same, the Anna University preferred appeals in batch of writ appeals in W.A.Nos. 898 of 2021 & etc., batch. This Court dismissed the appeal by an order dated 01.04.2025. Further, it is also relevant to extract paragraph Nos.46 to 48 in the batch of W.As is as follows:

“34. In paragraphs 46 to 48 learned Single Judge has justified the conclusion that parity of pay must be accorded in the following terms:-

46.The next issue that has to be taken into consideration is with regard to the pay that has to be made to the Petitioners by the Respondent University. Both the UGC Regulations as well as the AICTE Regulations makes it very clear that even in case of ad hoc or temporary service, the emoluments paid to such contract teachers should not be less than the monthly gross salary of a regularly appointed Assistant Professor. The Anna University gave scant regard to these Regulations and continued with the practice of consolidated pay to the Petitioners which was nowhere near the actual pay made to a regularly appointed Assistant Professor. It is again reiterated that the Petitioners even though were called as Teaching Fellows, were actually performing the duties of an Assistant Professor with all qualifications. Therefore, they should have been paid the emoluments on par with the monthly gross salary of a regularly appointed Assistant Professor.

47.It is also important to take note of the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in State of Punjab and Others v. Jagjit Singh and Others reported in (2017) 1 SCC 148. The relevant portions of the judgment are extracted hereunder:

42. All the judgments noticed in paras 7 to 24 herein above, pertain to employees engaged on regular basis, who were claiming higher wages, under the principle of “equal pay for equal work”. The claim raised by such employees was premised on the ground, that the duties and responsibilities rendered by them were against the same post for which a higher pay scale was being allowed in other government departments. Or alternatively, their duties and responsibilities were the same as of other posts with different designations, but they were placed in a lower scale. Having been painstakingly taken through the parameters laid down by this Court, wherein the principle of “equal pay for equal work” was invoked and considered, it would be just and appropriate to delineate the parameters laid down by this Court. In recording the said parameters, we have also adverted to some other judgments pertaining to temporary employees (also dealt with, in the instant judgment), wherein also, this Court had the occasion to express the legal position with reference to the principle of “equal pay for equal work”.

Our consideration, has led us to the following deductions: 42.1. The “onus of proof” of parity in the duties and responsibilities of the subject post with the reference post under the principle of “equal pay for equal work” lies on the person who claims it. He who approaches the court has to establish that the subject post occupied by him requires him to discharge equal work of equal value, as the ref