PRABHAT KIRAN MAITHANI Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioners before us are employees of the Forest Research Institute and Colleges Dehra Dun in the posts designated as Computors, Their grievance is that they should be treated as Research Assistants Grade II and given the same scale of pay and other conditions of service as are applicable to Research Assistants Grade II The respondents. Union of India and the President of the Forest Research Institute, deny that the petitioners are entitled to be treated as Research Assistants Grade II. The petitioners rely upon certain alleged admissions on behalf of the opposite parties. on certain classifications of Computors in the past, prior to the recommendations of the Third Pay Commission 1973 as well as on the last mentioned report of the Central Pay Commission. Furthermore, learned counsel has invited our attention to the case of Purshottam Lal. v. Union of India, (1973) 1 SCC 651 where upon a Writ Petition by Computors, they were shown as having been given identical scales of pay with the Research Assistants Grade II. This decision, however, does not deal with any controversy as to the correct classification of computors in comparison with Research Assistants Grade II, All we need say is that this case deals with the position under the Report of 1959 of the Second Pay Commission which has no bearing on the position which follows from the Report of the Third Pay Commission of 1973. Moreover, it is evident that even at that time Research Assistants Grade II and Computors were shown as separate classes even though their pay scales and the revised pay scales were shown as identical. Thus the claim of the petitioners is that this Court should not only include the Computors amongst Research Assistants Grade II. which is not borne out even from the Report of the Second Pay Commission, but go further and equate their pays, so that even though they belong to different classes, their scales of pay may be identical. We are afraid this is a matter which lay entirely within the sphere of the functions of the Pay Commission. This Court cannot satisfactorily decide such disputed questions on the slender material on which the learned counsel for the petitioner relied in order to displace what appears to us to be prima facie, the effect of the Report of the Third Pay Commission of 1973. This report shows that Computors not only belong to a separate class of their own but received less pay than Research Assistants of Grade II.

(2.) Learned Counsel for the petitioners tried to get out of the report of the Third Pay Commission contained in Chapter XVII relating to the Economists and Statisticians, wherein Computors are mentioned and dealt with in paragraphs 32 to 34, by asserting that there case should be covered by either chapter XV. which deals with "Scientific Services (specifically mentioned therein), or Chapter XXI. concerned with Ministry of Agriculture where the Forest Research Institute and Colleges are mentioned in paragraphs 58 onwards. It seems to us to be erroneous to attempt to place Computors in Chapter XV. which deals with specified "Scientific Services where Computors are not mentioned, or in Chapter XXI. which also does not mention Computors at all. Learned Counsel for the petitioners tried to take advantage of the fact that paragraphs dealing with the Forest Research Institute in Chapter XXI do not mention Computors. It does not follow from this that Computors necessarily belong to the class into which the petitioners want to get in without showing what the criteria and functions of persons entitled to be treated as Research Assistants of Grade II are as compared with the Computors who, prima facie, belong to another class of workers dealing with statistics even though they may be in some way assisting in research or there may be some common functions, Indeed, everyone working in a research institute could, in some way, be said to be assisting in research. We think that these are question entirely unfit for determination upon a petition for a Writ for the enforcement of fundamental rights. It requires:firstly, formulation of correct criteria for each classification; and, secondly, the application of these criteria to facts relating to the functions and qualifications for each class. The Pay Commission had done this elaborately.

(3.) The learned Solicitor General has invited our attention to the case of Union of India v. G. R. Prabhavalkar reported in (1973) 3 SCR 714 where this Court held that equation of posts is not a duty which the High Court was competent to carry out in proceedings under Art. 226. We do not think that we have wider powers or that we can do with greater facility what a High Court cannot when exercising its writ issuing jurisdiction.