HARISH CHANDER SHARMA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 26 Junior Physical Education Teacher. (for short 'Jr. PTIs') employees of the New Delhi Municipal Committee have brought this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for a writ requiring the New Delhi Municipal Committee (for short 'NDMC') to follow the principle of 'equal pay for equal work' and pay the petitioners the same pay-scale as is being paid to employees set out in annexure-II and to also regularise the services of the petitioners.

(2.) These petitioners, whose particulars in detail have been given in annexure-I, were appointed by NDMC as Jr. PTIs in the pay-scale of Rs. 330-560 in between the period 1975 to 1983. 18 Jr. PTIs whose particulars stand enumerated in annexure-II, were appointed as Jr. PTIs in the pay-scale of Rs. 440-750 in between the period 1964 to 1972. The case set up by the petitioners is simply this that the petitioners as well as the employees mentioned in annexure-II have been appointed to the same posts and they have been working in Primary Schools/Youth Centres and minimum requisite qualification for the petitioners as well as the said persons are the same although factually the petitioners are academically better qualified than the said other persons and the petitioners as well as the other employees mentioned above have some working hours and teach the classes from 1st to Vth according to the syllabus prescribed by the Education Department of NDMC and they function under the Head Master/Head Mistress, D.O. (Physical) and their postings are inter se transferable and thus, as the petitioners and the said employees are performing same type of work the discrimination made between the petitioners and the said employees with regard to the pay-scale is arbitrary and is hit by Articles 14 & 16 of the Constitution of India.

(3.) It was also pleaded that till 1978 a joint seniority list of the petitioners and the said employees was in force. So, the petitioners have placed reliance on the well-known judgment of the Supreme Court in Randhir Singh v. Union of India, AIR 1982 SC 879,(l) for getting equal pay for equal work. They have urged that the clasification made by NDMC placing the petitioners in different category than the said employees vis-a-vis the pay-scale is irrational and is not based on any principles for achieving any particular object.