STATE OF KERALA Vs. K. JAYANANDAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The State is the petitioner in both these Original Petitions which impugn the order dtd. 7/6/2017 of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal in O.A.Nos.2122 and 2226 of 2015. The applicants before the Tribunal, the respondents herein are Medical Officers who retired as Additional Director of Health Services on 31/10/1998 and 31/3/1999 respectively after rendering more than 30 years of service. The grievance projected by the applicants before the Tribunal was essentially that they had not been extended pensionary benefits in tune with the new pay revision benefits extended to those presently in service and hence they were denied the benefits of One Rank One Pension (OROP) that had been assured to them as pensioners. It was their case that while certain allowances had been sanctioned in favour of those in service as on 1/7/2009, and the grant of such allowances had the effect of altering the minimum of the basic pay obtained by persons presently in service in the cadre of Additional Director of Health Services the corresponding benefit of revision of pension was not given to them. They contended therefore that the State had effectively created two classes of pensioners, namely, those who retired before 1/7/2009 and those who had retired thereafter and that the said classification was discriminatory in nature.

(2.) It would appear that the applicants were being paid their pension regularly and the benefits of periodic revisions were also being extended to them. Consequent to the recommendations of the 9th Pay Revision Commission, the Government by an Order dtd. 26/2/2011 revised the pay and allowances of the Government employees. Based on the said revision, the Government also issued an order dtd. 28/2/2011 revising the pension and other benefits with effect from 1/7/2009. In adherence to the principles of OROP, the Government in the order dtd. 28/2/2011 had clearly indicated that the fixation of pension will be subject to the provision that in the case of pensioners having qualifying service of 30 years and above, the consolidated pension so arrived at shall not be lower than 50% of the minimum of the pay in the corresponding revised scale of the post from which the pensioner retired.

(3.) We find that the pay scale applicable to the post of Additional Director of Health Services as revised by the Government Order dtd. 26/2/2011 was Rs.46,640.00 - Rs.59,840.00. However, since the doctors in service in the Health Services Department were not satisfied with the hike in their pay as provided in the Government Order which, apparently went against their expectations, they approached the Government through the Kerala Government Medical Officers Association, while simultaneously resorting to public agitations. In a bid to to restore normalcy, the Government initiated discussions with the Medical Officers Association as a conciliatory measure. During the deliberations the Government proposed that instead of subsuming the special allowances allowed in the Government Order dtd. 26/5/2008, an amount equal to 76% special allowance would be subsumed with the basic pay in the respective posts and special allowances would be sanctioned to the posts in the specialty cadre. Further, acting on the suggestions offered by the Kerala Government Medical Officers Association, the Government also agreed that the pay would be fixed in the next stage in the same scale of pay. Thereafter, taking note of the Government Order dtd. 29/11/2011 it was ordered that all the doctors in the Health Services Department would be allowed pay revision as per the general conditions in 2009 pay revision order and after revising the pay, 76% of the existing common special allowance attached to each cadre would be merged with the revised basic pay as on 1/7/2009, or any subsequent date to which the incumbents came over to the revised pay, and the pay fixed at the next higher stage in the scale of pay. The entry level basic pay of the Additional Director of Health Services was accordingly revised to Rs.50,840.00 in the scale of pay of Rs.46,640.00 - Rs.59,840.00 with special pay of Rs.3,100.00 only for those in service as on 1/7/2009.