BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LIMITED Vs. P. S. HASSAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment shall dispose of four OP(CAT) Nos. 45/2017, 74/2018, 84/2018 and 79/2017 arising out of different judgments. OP(CAT) No.45 of 2017 arising out of judgment dtd. 17/6/2016 in O.A.No.1056/2014 is considered to be the lead case. However, the said judgment has been followed in other OA's, ie., O.A.Nos. 925/2015, 183/2015 and 182/2015, thus, we take up the facts from the lead case.

(2.) Respondents/applicants had approached the Central Administrative Tribunal by raising grievance with regard to improper fixation of pay and non-extension of the pay fixation benefits under the Non-Executive Promotion Policy (hereinafter referred to as "NEPP") Scheme and consequent anomaly of juniors drawing higher pay than the applicants.

(3.) Before 1/10/2000, there were two departments, one was Department of Postal and Telegraph and the other was the department of Indian Telecommunication. Both merged together with effect from 1/10/2000. In order to bring succor with regard to the grievances of the employees working in the DoPT, Bharath Sanchar Nigham, on 23/3/2010, came out with the Non Executive Promotion Policy (NEPP) for the employees in the Industrial Dearness Allowance pay scales of Non-Executive -1 to Non-Executive-10 of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and its implementation thereof. The scope of the aforementioned time-bound IDA scale upgradation policy was that the Non-Executive employees absorbed or recruited by the BSNL, who were working on regular establishment of BSNL as on 1/4/2008 or after, in a substantive NonExecutive post and drawing Non-Executive pay scale of NonExecutive-1 to Non-Executive-10 (hereinafter referred to "NE-1 - NE-10") would be covered by the policy and maximum four upgradations would be allowed in the BSNL, irrespective of any upgradation provided to such employees before the formation of BSNL. The review date was fixed on 1st of October of each year, with the first review under the policy with reference to 1/10/2004.