TRIPURA CO-OPERATIVE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT BANK LTD. AND ORS. Vs. SUBHAS CHANDRA BISWAS AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ appeal by the Tripura Co-operative Agricultural and Rural Development Bank(TCARD) is directed against the judgment dated 24.11.2011 passed by a learned single Judge of the Agartala Bench of the Gauhati High Court which then exercised jurisdiction over the State of Tripura whereby the writ petition filed by the writ petitioner(respondent No. 1 herein) was allowed and it was directed to process the claim of the writ petitioner for grant of revised pay scale by considering his post equivalent to the post in the Tripura State Cooperative Bank Ltd.(TSCB).

(2.) The admitted facts are that the petitioner is an employee of the Tripura Co-operative Agricultural and Rural Development Bank Ltd. He was appointed as Field Officer (Gr.II) on 14th January, 1980. Both the Banks fall within the purview of the Tripura Co-operative Societies Act, 1974. The case of the petitioner is that the scales of pay in both Tripura Co-operative Agricultural & Rural Development Bank and Tripura State Co-operative Bank for Gr.II Officers were identical at all times and the first anomaly took place in 1996. It is also submitted that the duty and nature of work of both the posts are identical and, therefore, the petitioner is entitled to the same scale of pay as is granted to Gr.II Officers in the Tripura State Co-operative Bank Ltd.

(3.) The writ petition in question out of which the appeal arises was filed in the year 2001. From a perusal of the table referred to hereinabove the similarity in the pay scales was only from 1978 to 1981. Thereafter the employees/Gr.II Officers in Tripura Co-operative Agricultural and Rural Development Bank were getting a higher pay scale than the employees/officers of the Tripura State Co-operative Bank from 01.01.1982 to 31.12.1987. From 01.01.1988 the Gr.II Officers in the Tripura State Co-operative Bank were always in the higher pay scale. The writ petition has been filed in the year 2001 whereas this difference in pay scales was existing from the year 1988 and there is no explanation worth the name why this writ petition was filed so many years later.