JUDGMENT

Mrs. Sujata V. Manohar, J.-Delay condoned.

2. Leave granted in the Special Leave Petitions.

3. These appeals have been filed from the judgments of different Benches of the Central Administrative Tribunal. The employees who are before us belong to the Departments of Posts and Telegraph and Telecommunications. They can be broadly classified into two categories : those who belong to the Accounts stream and those who belong to the Engineering stream. In the Accounts stream we are concerned with two posts, the posts of Assistant Accounts Officer and the next promotional post of Accounts Officer. In the Engineering stream, there are employees belonging to the Telegraph Traffic Services and employees belonging to Posts and Telegraph Electrical Wing Services. In the Telegraph Traffic Services, we are concerned with the posts of Junior Engineer and the next promotional post of Assistant Engineer. In the stream of Telegraph Traffic Services we are concerned with the posts of Assistant Superintendent, Telegraph Traffic subsequently re-designated as Junior Telecom Officer and the next promotional post of Superintendent, Telegraph Traffic now designated as Sub-Divisional Engineer. In the Posts and Telegraph Electric Wing we are concerned with the post of Junior Engineer and the next promotional post of Assistant Engineer. In C.A. No. 8730/96 the respondent was a Junior Stenographer in the National Aerospace Laboratories, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The question raised is the same : of Pay fixation on promotion.

4. All these appeals and special leave petitions raise a common question relating to interpretation of certain Fundamental Rules which govern the services of all these employees, and certain Government Orders issued in this behalf. The promotees who are respondents in these appeals claim that they are getting in the promotional post less pay than their juniors who have been subsequently promoted to the same post. This is an anomaly which should be removed by stepping up their pay to the same level as their junior from the date he was promoted.

5. For the sake of convenience we are referring to the facts in Civil Appeal No. 8658 of 1996. The respondent, R. Swaminathan, at the material time, was an Accounts Officer with the Madras Telephones. Prior to his promotion as Accounts Officer he held the post of Assistant Accounts Officer. On his promotion to the post of Accounts Officer on 18.2.1988 his pay was fixed at Rs. 2675/-. One J.N. Misra, who was junior to the respondent, was also subsequently promoted to the post of Accounts Officer. His pay, however, was fixed at Rs. 3125/-. The respondent thereupon filed O.A.No. 1324 of 1993 before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Madras Bench claiming that his pay should be stepped up to equal that of his junior J.N. Misra from the date on which the anomaly arose and that he should be paid all arrears arising on account of such refixation. The Tribunal by its judgment dated 9.2.1994 allowed the respondent s application on the basis of its earlier decision which is also the subject matter of appeal before us.

6. Fixation of pay on promotion to a higher post is governed by Fundamental Rule 22(I)(a)(1) which was formerly Fundamental Rule 22-C. It is as follows :

"F.R. 22(I): The initial pay of a Government servant who is appointed to a post on a time-scale of pay is regulated as follows :-

(a)(1) Where a Government servant holding a post, other than a tenure post, in a substantive or temporary or officiating capacity is promoted or appointed in a substantive, temporary or officiating capacity, as the case may be, subject to the fulfilment of the eligibility conditions as prescribed in the relevant Recruitment Rules, to another post carrying duties and responsibilities of greater importance than those attaching to the post held by him, his initial pay in the time-scale of the higher post shall be fixed at the stage next above the notional pay arrived at by increasing his pa