BHAGWATI Vs. UOI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE various pay commissions have the mandate to recommend revision in pay scales to various posts under the Government of India and in respect of workmen the Pay Commissioner recommends revision of pay scales not in respect of individual trades but by classifying the workmen into three categories; unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workmen. THEreafter it is left to the departmental heads to make applicable the pay scales depending upon the nature of trade in which a workman is engaged.

(2.) AN issue cropped up when tailors under the Ministry of Defence deployed at different Army Units and engaged in the work of tailoring raised an issue of being categorized as semi-skilled workmen, claiming that the trade in which they were engaged required special skill. They contrasted their work with rope makers, carpenters and tent menders by pointing out that if these workmen were to be treated as skilled workmen, which they were, tailors could not be treated as semi-skilled.

(3.) APPARENTLY, the letter dated 19.9.1986, in the usual telegraphic form peculiar to the army, required tailors to be placed at par with carpenters and painters in the same category but of semi-skilled workers. Thus, it is apparent that the tailors got equality but as sinkers for the reason their representations resulted in carpenters and painters being downgraded from skilled workmen to semi-skilled workmen.