KARNATAKA STATE CO-OP AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT BANK LTD., REPRESENTED BY ITS MANAGING DIRECTOR Vs. SRI. C.R. KRISHNA MURTHY S/O RAMAKRISHNEGOWDA, SRI ANANTHARAM, SMT. B. SHASHIKALA ALL ARE EMPLOYEES OF KARNATAKA STATE CO-OP. AGRICULTURE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD the learned Counsel for the Petitioner and the Respondents.

(2.) THE Petitioner is a Co -operative society carrying on banking business. Respondents I to 3 were appointed as Second Division Clerks on temporary basis on 6.11.1995. The managing committee of the Petitioner regularized their services as Second Division Clerks with effect from 22.4.1987 and absorbed them as permanent employees, prospectively. However, Respondents 1 to 3 filed a dispute seeking issuance of directions to consider their temporary service prior to regularization for the purpose of leave, increments, and other benefits including additional basic pay. The same was resisted by the Petitioner and the Petitioner contested the same. Respondent No. 4 however passed an award dated 30.7.2001 directing fixation of pay of the Respondents on par with A.N. Shivalingegowda and others, who were appointed with retrospective effect, though those persons stood on the same footing, as the Petitioners. However, the Petitioners challenged the said award by way of an appeal before the Karnataka Appellate Tribunal. The appeal was dismissed and it is against the said judgment that the present petition is filed,

(3.) HAVING regard to the above contentions and the circumstances which are disputed by the Respondents herein, who seek to justify the judgment of the Tribunal as well as the order passed by the Assistant Registrar of Co -operative Societies, it is apparent that there is a glaring anomaly insofar as the pay -scales are concerned. Since the Respondents and Shivalingegowda and others are juniors to the present Respondents, it is necessary that their pay -scales be made on par with each other, in order that there is no apparent arbitrariness and the principle of 'equal pay for equal work' be maintained without necessarily extending all other benefits which may by virtue of the resolution dated 16.7.1990 may have been afforded to Shivalingegowda and others.