ALVARE NORONHA FERRIERA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Some Judges whose function was dispensation of justice had to approach the High Court for justice based on the celebrated doctrine "equal pay for equal work" but they were non-suited by a Division Bench of that High Court. They were Judges of higher judiciary in the subordinate level. They have now come to the Supreme Court with this appeal by special leave. It is interesting that, in the meanwhile, two of them have become Judges of the same High Court of Bombay as efflux of a decade in between has changed the hierarchical status of the parties who initiated this legal action. When they filed the writ petition in the High Court they were District and Sessions Judges. One of them has since retired from service but the cause which they espoused survives.

(2.) The nub of their grievance is this:When the scale of pay of their counterparts in the Union Territory of Delhi was increased, appellants, while working in the same cadre in the Union Territory of Goa, were not given that pay scale. It infringes, according to them, the principle enshrined in the Constitution.

(3.) Facts are simple. On 20-12-1961 the Territories of Goa, Daman and Diu were liberated from the suzerainty of Portugal. In 1962, Goa became part of the Union Territory of India. Appellants were District Judges posted in the Union Territory of Goa. On 3-9-1981 the pay-scale of Judicial Officers (in the category of Additional District and Sessions Judges) in the Union Territories was the same Rs. 1200-2000/-. In 1982 the Union Territory of Delhi increased the scale of pay of such Judges to Rs. 2000-3200/- while their counterparts in the Union Territory of Goa were not given any increase to keep the scale on par with the former. When the Fourth Pay Commission was formed representations were made by the Judicial Officers of Goa to rectify the anomally which, according to them, came into existence for the first time in 1982, but no relief was provided to them. On the contrary, the recommendations of the Pay Commission were for raising the scale of pay of Delhi Judges to Rs. 4500-5700/- while that of Goa Judges was raised only to Rs. 3000-5000/-.