UNION OF INDIA Vs. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PENSIONERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE brief facts giving rise to the present set of writ petitions filed by the Union of India and the Subordinate Officers in the Postal Department are as follows:-There is a practice in the Postal Department to engage retired employees of the Postal Department as short duty Postal Assistants (hereinafter referred to as SDPAS) in various Post Offices to meet the peak hour traffic, that is to say, heavy booking and posting in the evening besides periodical and seasonal spells, such as on the eve of New Year, Diwali, etc. The Postal Department also engage persons in the list of candidates for direct recruitment as Reserved Trained Pool Assistants, in short RTPAs to the very same work. All such persons, who are engaged in the above capacity, are paid wages on hourly basis. While calculating the wages payable to RTPAs, calculation is based on salary as well as Dearness Allowance. However, while calculating hourly wages payable to the retired persons employed as SDPAs, Dearness component is ignored. Obviously on the basis of such calculation, the retired persons engaged as SDPAs receive hourly wages at a lesser rate as compared to RTPAs for doing the very same work. To mitigate such grievance, the retired persons engaged on the aforesaid basis had knocked at the doors of Central Administrative Tribunal in Madras Bench as well as in other places. On many earlier occasions, such O. As filed by the aggrieved persons had been allowed and the Department had been directed to pay hourly wages on the very same rate as applicable to RTPAs, obviously, by following the principle that there should be equality in the matter of payment of wages for doing the very same work. Many earlier decisions of the Tribunal have already been given effect to by the Department. However, notwithstanding the fact that such orders were implemented by the Department on various earlier occasions and may be in various other States, the Union of India and other superior Officers of the Postal Department had thought it fit to challenge similar directions issued by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Madras Bench in some later cases.

(2.) THE main contention raised in these writ petitions is to the effect that the retired postal employees, who are re-engaged as SDPAs, cannot claim equality with the Reserved Trained Pool Assistants (RTPAs), as the persons in the former category are already receiving Dearness Allowance on the pension payable to them and whereas the persons belonging to the latter category, who are persons waiting for their regular employment, are engaged wherever there is necessity and they stand on a different category. However, there is no dispute that the nature and quality of the work rendered by the persons belonging to either category are the same. It is also not disputed that the practice of engaging RTPAs on the aforesaid basis has been discontinued in the meantime, since about last 3 to 4 years.

(3.) ON behalf of the petitioners in the different writ petitions, arguments have been advanced by the learned Additional Solicitor General as well as Thiru. Mohan Ram, SCGSC, who has appeared in the connected writ petitions. Their basic contention is to the effect that since two categories are different, there is no discrimination. It is also submitted by them that since Dearness Allowance is also included in the pension payable to the retired persons, there is no justification for them to claim Dearness Allowance.