STATE OF TRIPURA Vs. BISWA KANYA DEBBARMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals arise out of a common judgment of the learned Single Judge. They have been heard together and would be disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) Appeals are filed by the State Government to challenge the judgment of the learned Single Judge, dated 25th July 2019, in WP(C) No.520/2019 and connected petitions. The original petitioners had approached the High Court seeking their placement in the pay scale of Rs.240-440/-(pre-revised) with corresponding fitment in revised scales from time to time from their initial appointments with all consequential benefits. All the petitioners were engaged under the Director of Handloom Handicrafts and Sericulture (DHHS), Government of Tripura, as Junior Production Assistants or posts carrying different nomenclature but carrying the same pay scales. The grievance of the petitioners was that they were granted scales of pay under revised pay rules corresponding to pre-revised scale of Rs.170-210/- instead of Rs.240-440/-.

(3.) This litigation has long history and starts from an industrial dispute registered as Labour Case No.1/1998 in case of Sri Chandan alias Chandanmoy Dasgupta and Ors. v. State of Tripura before the Industrial Tribunal, Agartala. The reference was made by the Government of Tripura pursuant to an order passed by the Gauhati High Court on the question whether the workmen who were Industrial Training Institute(ITI) trained industrial workers of Government Production Unit, Industrial Estate, Arundhutinagar, were entitled to draw their wages in the scale of pay of Rs.240-440/- w.e.f 1st April, 1979. The case of the workmen in the said labour dispute was that they all were holding ITI training certificates from recognised institutions. Workmen with similar educational qualifications and duties and responsibilities in other departments of the Government were granted the scale of pay of Rs.240-440/- w.e.f 1st April 1979 but the workmen before the Industrial Tribunal were granted scale of pay of Rs.170-210/- and in the some cases, it was Rs.196-255/-. These workmen had also pointed that some of the workmen in their own department were also granted the pay scale of Rs.240-440/- and they were discriminated in terms of grant of proper pay scale.