M. P. POLYTECHNICS GAZETTED OFFICERS ASSOCIATION, BHOPAL AND OTHERS Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners 2 to 5 namely. K. G. Pillav, K. N. Rao, Danayak and C. S. Tiwari, are employed in Government Polytechnics as Principal, Head of the Department Lecturer and Assistant Lecturer respectively. Petitioner No. I is the Madhya Pradesh Polytechnics Gazetted Officers Association. By this petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution, the petitioners pray that the Government be directed to give them the benefits of the Madhya Pradesh Unification of Pay Scales and Fixation of Pay on Absorption Rules, 1959, and the Madhya Pradesh Revision of Pay Rules, 1961.

(2.) The stand of the Government is that the Unification of Pay Rules, 1959, and the revision of Pay Rules, 1961, were not applied to the teachers in technical institutions and that to them, the revised pay scales sanctioned on the recommendations of the Government of India with effect from 1st Dec., 1959 were made applicable. By Notification dated 3rd May, 1978, the 1959 Rules and 196. Rules were both retrospectively amended from the date of their commencement by inserting Rule 3-A. Rule 3 A so inserted, in so far as it is relevant here, specifically provides that the 1959 Rules and 61 Rules will not apply to the teachers in technical institutions to whom revised pay States sanctioned on the recommendation of the Government of India with effect from 1st Dec. 199 are applicable. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the insertion of this retrospective rule has deprived the petitioners of the salary that has accrued to them under the aforesaid ivies and that the amendment retrospectively made contravenes their rights under Articles 19 and 31 of the Constitution The reply of the Government Advocate to this contention is that Rule 3-A only makes clear what was implicit in the rules and that on a proper construction and application of the rules it should be held that they never applied to the petitioners.

(3.) The present State of Madhya Pradesh was formed on 1st Nov., 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act. 1956, the new State broadly consists of four integrated units namely, Mabakoshal area of the erstwhile Madhya Pradesh, the erstwhile States of Madhya Bharat, Madhya Pradesh and Bhopal. Different pay scales were applicable in the various units for same or similar posts, The State Government, therefore, decided to unify the pay scales and to bring all the Government servants who were absorbed in the new state in the unified pay scale. It appears that the most beneficial pay scale out of the various pay scales in force in the different units for the same past was selected as the unified scale It was to give effect to this policy that the Madhya Pradesh Unification of Pay Scales and Fixation of Pay on Absorption Rules, 199, were made, by a Notification dated 30th Nov. 1959. The rules were given retrospective effect from 1st April 1958.