STATE OF TAMIL NADU Vs. M R ALAGAPPAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE State of Tamil Nadu and Director of Agriculture, Madras as common appellants have brought in challenge a common judgment rendered by Tamil Nadu Administrative Tribunal in two Original Applications filed by the contesting respondents who are working as Deputy Agricultural Officers in the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Extension Subordinate Service under the Agriculture Department of the said State. THE Tribunal by its impugned common judgment in these two original applications has taken the view that the contesting respondents are entitled to get the same pay scale as available to Agricultural Officers working in Tamil Nadu Agricultural Extension Service as according to the Tribunal both these categories of employees perform the same type of work and carry out the same type of duties. Consequently on the principle of Equal Pay for Equal Work the appellant-State must maintain parity of pay scales between these two groups of employees working in its Agriculture Department. THE Tribunal has also directed that the contesting respondents be paid all arrears with effect from 1/06/1988.

(2.) ON grant of special leave to appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution of India the appellants have preferred these appeals. During the pendency of these appeals by an interim order of this Court the impugned judgment and order of the Tribunal have remained stayed. In order to appreciate the grievance of the respondents which appealed to the Tribunal, it is necessary to note a few introductory facts leading to these proceedings.

(3.) IN support of these appeals learned counsel for appellants submitted, relying on a series of decisions of this Court to which we will make as reference hereafter, that difference in educational qualifications can furnish a rational criterion for classifying different categories of employees and for offering them different pay scales. It was submitted that Agricultural Officers are directly recruited as gazetted officers in Tamil Nadu Agricultural Extension Service while the respondents who were promotee-Deputy Agricultural Officers were non-gazetted officers belonging to Tamil Nadu Agricultural Extension Subordinate Service. That the methods or recruitment to both these services were different. Agricultural Officers were directly recruited while Deputy Agricultural Officers were promotees. Their educational qualifications were also different. Before a direct recruit can be considered for appointment as Agricultural Officer from open market he has to possess the degree of Bachelor of Science (Agriculture) in addition to other requisite qualifications as laid down by the statutory rules while so far as the Deputy Agricultural Officer is concerned all that was required was passing of SSLC examination with the requisite experience as laid down in the Rules. That though they may be discharging the same type of duties, the quality of work which they were required to carry out was entirely different. That out of 2390 posts of Agricultural officers there were 1372 posts to which Deputy Agricultural Officers could not be posted as they were of specialised type while only for the rest of 1018 posts Deputy Agricultural Officers could also be posted to work and in that sense for these 1018 posts there was interchangeability of assignment between these two groups of employees. It was further contended that even though the duty charts of both these groups of employees were almost identical there were certain special duties assigned to Agricultural Officers which could not be entrusted to Deputy Agricultural Officers. It was therefore, submitted that these two classes of employees though working in the Agriculture Department of the State form two distinct and separate classes and there was no comparison between the two to enable them to earn same pay scale and consequently the Tribunal had committed a patent error of law in passing the impugned order in their favour.