JASWANT SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this writ petition the petitioners who are Superintendents in the Office of District & Sessions Judge, Delhi claim the same scale of pay as is admissible to Superintendents in the High Court of Delhi. The facts leading to the present writ petition arc as under:-

(2.) Prior to the year 1973 the Superintendents in the establishment of the District & Sessions Judge as well as Suprintendents in the High Court were in the same scale of pay viz. Rs.350-575(pre-revised). How subsequently disparity occured between the pay scales of Superintendents working in the Office of District & Sessions Judge and the Superintendents working in the High Court has asmall history about it. In 1970 this Court frmaed High Court Officers & Servants(Salaries, Leave, Allowances & Pension) Rules (for short Rules). Rule 2 of the Rules read with Sedule l(Part II item 5) thereto prescribed a scale of Rs.350- 25-575 for the Superintendents working in the High Court. On the recommendations of the IIIrd Pay Commission the scale of Rs.350-25-575 was replaced by a scale of Rs.550-25-750 EB-30-900 with effect from January 1, 1973. This scale also applied to the Superintendents working in the office of the District & Sessions Judge. Rule 3 of the Rules also needs to be noticed which inter-alia, provides that the post of Superintendent in the High Court shall correspond to the post of Superintendent in the Delhi Administration in so far as its conditions of service pertaining to pension, leave and allowances are concerned. One Sangram Singh, a Superintendent of this Court, filed a writ petition, being C.W. 2812/81, in which he claimed parity of pay scale with the Private Secretaries and Readers of this Court. Following the judgment rendered in P.N. Chopra & another vs.Union of India and others (C.W.No. 329/80 decided on December 17,1980) ILR (1981) 11 Delhi 102), whereby this Court issued a mandamus directing the respondents including Union of India and Delhi Administration to equate the posts of Private Secretaries & Readers of Judges of this Court with the post of Private Secretary to the Chief Secretary, writ petition filed by Sangram Singh was allowed on May 28, 1982. The effect of this judgment was that the Superintendents of this Court were allowed a pay scale of Rs.775-1200 with effect from January 1, 1973. Being aggrieved by the decision of this Court a Special Leave Petition was moved by the Union of India which was dismissed. While dismissing the same, the Supreme Court clarified that Superintendents will be entitled to the higher grade from August 14, 1977 instead of P53 January 1, 1973 as held by the High Court. On October 20, 1981 i.e. after the decision in Chopra's case and prior to the judgment of this Court in Sangram Singh's case Superintendents attached to the Office of District & Sessions Judge represented to this Court that their pay scales be revised from Rs.550-900 (now Rs.1640-2900) to Rs.775-1200 (now Rs.3000-4500), so that they could be brought at par with the Private Secretaries and Readers of this Court. The representation was moved through the District & Sessions Judge, who recommended that their case for upward revision of pay scale be taken up alongwith the case of the Superintendents working in the High Court, which was under the consideration of the authorities. The representation of the Superintendents was ultimately transmitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. On April 30,1983, the Ministry of Home Affairs informed the Delhi Administration that IVth Pay Commission was being constituted and the claim of the Superintendents should beplaced before it. But the Pay Commission unfortunately did not deal with the pay scale of the Superintendents working in the Office of District & Sessions Judge. This led to the filing of a fresh representation on June 10, 1987 by the present petitioners. In this representation it was, inter-alia, pointed out that by virtue of the recommendations of the IVth Pay Commission the posts of Senior Stenographer and Reader, which were the feeder posts for the post of Superin- tendent, had been placed in the scale ofRs.2000-3200 while the scale of pay for the post of Superintendent was not revised upward and remained in pay scale of Rs-1640-2900. It was contended that since the feeder post was upgraded, there was no justification for keeping the higher post in the scale of Rs-1640-2900 which should be in the scale of Rs.2000-3500. The case of the petitioners was again recommended by the District Judge and the same was forwarded to this Court. On July 10, 1989, this Court keeping in view the recommendation of the District Judge and having regard to all the relevant circumstances also recommended the case of the petitioners to Delhi Administration for revision of their pay scales. The Delhi Administration by its letter dated December 1, 1989 addressed to the Registrar, Delhi High Court sought inter-alia the following information as the same was required by the Government of India, Ministry of Law and Justice :-

(3.) Thereupon the High Court by its letter dated December 12, 1989 asked the District Judge to furnish the details of the duties and responsibilities attached to the post of Superintendent in his office. Pursuant to the dirction of the High Court the District Judge by his letter dated March 12, 1990 furnished the requisite information based on detailed study of the duties and responsibility attached to the post of Superintendents which was forwarded to the Delhi Administration on March 17, 1990(Annexure P-11). The Delhi Administration on receipt of the information also recommended by its letter dated April 12, 1990 to the Government of India to revise the pay scales of Superintendents working in the office of the District Judge. Again on May 25, 1991 the Registrar of this Court while emphasing the need to revise scale of pay of the Superintendents working in the office of District Judge gave reasons justifying the demand of the petitioners and also brought out dissimilarity of work performed by the Superintendents in the District Courts and Superintendents working in theDelhi Administration in the following manner:-