NIRMAL KANTA Vs. NEW DELHI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has preferred the present writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to assail the order dated 12.03.2013 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi, (for short, 'the Tribunal') in O.A. No. 1313/2011 whereby the petitioner's application was dismissed by the Tribunal. The petitioner had raised her grievance before the Tribunal that she has not been placed in the correct pay scale, which had been granted to other similarly placed employees.

(2.) THE case of the petitioner was that she was initially appointed as a part time Craft Teacher on ad hoc basis on a consolidated salary vide order dated 24.03.1987. Vide orders dated 09.03.1988, she was deemed to have been appointed with effect from 13.10.1987 as a full time teacher at Rs. 950/ - in the pay scale of Rs.950 -20 -1150 -EB -25 -1500 plus usual allowances including HRA, and was posted in the Social Education Department against one of the five posts of Craft Teachers sanctioned for absorption of part time Craft Teachers vide Resolution No. 6 dated 13.10.1987 of the respondent -New Delhi Municipal Committee. The petitioner claimed that she possessed the requisite qualifications for such appointment. The petitioner claimed that she was not aware that others had been appointed to the post of Craft Teacher in the higher pay scale of Rs. 1200 -2040, instead of pay scale offered to her i.e. Rs. 950 -1500.

(3.) THE petition was opposed by the respondent. In their counter reply, the respondent raised the issue of the application being barred by limitation since she had been placed in the pay scale of Rs.950 -1500 on 09.03.1988, whereas the original application was preferred only in the year 2011. On merits, the respondent stated that there are two different posts of craft teachers, namely, Junior Social Education Teachers in the pay scale of Rs. 950 -1500, and Senior Social Education Teachers in the pay scale of Rs. 1200 -2040. Since the petitioner was appointed and was working as a Junior Craft Teacher, she was correctly placed in the pay scale of Rs. 950 -1500. The respondent also contended that apart from making general averments, no specific details of other employees who were allegedly drawing the pay in the higher pay scale of Rs. 1200 -2040 were pleaded. The respondent categorically denied that any person in the employment of the respondent, who had joined in the same post as the applicant, was ever placed in the higher pay scale. The respondent also stated that prior to 1981 itself, there were two pay scales of craft teachers as per the recruitment rules and that the junior scale was Rs. 950 -1500. The respondent also stated that when the new recruitment rules were framed, the nomenclature of the Craft Teacher was changed to that of Social Education Teachers but the posts remained the same, with the same nature of duties in two levels of posts with different nomenclature i.e. the Junior Social Education Teacher and Senior Social Education Teacher in the pay scales of Rs.950 -1500 and Rs. 1200 - 2040 respectively vide recruitment rules framed in 1991. The corresponding pay scales for the pay scales of Rs. 950 -1500 and Rs. 1200 -2040 (under the Fourth CPC) as fixed under the Fifth and Sixth CPCs were also disclosed by the respondents.