ASWINI KUMAR RATH Vs. P C MUKHERJEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This proceeding in contempt arises out of an alleged breach of the Rule absolute made in C. R. 253(W) of 1962 (hereinafter referred to as 'the original case')

(2.) In that case, the Petitioners came with the complaint that their fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 16 had been violated by certain orders issued by the State The Petitioners are ordinary Graduates. They WTC appointed Sub Inspectors of Schools, in the year 1954 or thereabout together with others who are Honours Graduates and Post-Graduates, on the same pay scale of Rs. 100-225, on the basis of an advertisement which laid down the minimum qualification as a Bachelor's degree, with a diploma in leaching-without making any distinction between Graduates inter se. The Petitioners' complaint was that some five years after such appointment, the Stale made a discrimination by the impugned order of 1959 in Ann. B, by which the pay-scale of the Honours Graduates and Post-Graduates was raised to Rs. 130-350/-, thus making a discrimination against the Petitioners who are ordinary Graduates, without any reasonable basis for classification, the benefit of this higher pay-scale having been retrospectively extended to those Honours Graduates and Post-Graduates who had been appointed along with the Petitioners in 1954, on the same basis. Subsequently, in pursuance of the recommendations of the Pay Commission the pay-scales of all Sub-Inspectors of Schools were revised by an order of 1962, but the discrimination made against the Petitioners was not removed, for, while the scale of Sub-Inspectors who were ordinary Graduates was raised to Rs. 175-325/-, that of Honours Graduates and Post-Graduates was raised to Rs. 225-475/-. The Petitioners, on the foregoing facts, challenged the validity of the impugned order in Aun.B, as modified by the subsequent order of 1962 as discriminatory, and prayed for a writ of mandamus, so that their pay-scale might be raised to the same level as that of the Graduates of the higher order. The writ of Mandamus prayed for in Para XIV of the Petition was as follows:

(3.) In my judgment, I held that the impugned order violated boll) Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution inasmuch as though the ordinary Graduates and the Graduates having Honours or a Master's degree were appointed as a single unit on the announcement that they would get the same scale of pay, the impugned order sought to make a subsequent discrimination by offering higher pay to the Honours Graduates and Post-Graduates without any reasonable basis for such favourable treatment But the relief granted was not exactly in the same form as the Petitioners prayed for in their Petition. The order sought for was that the Petitioners' pay-scale should be raised to the higher level at which it had been fixed for the Honours Graduates and Post-Graduates. The order issued by me, in substance, was that the discrimination or differential treatment between the two groups of Sub-Inspectors as made by the impugned order must be removed, but no direction was given as to the particular made in which it was to be done. The Rule was made absolute by the ordering portion of the judgment in the following terms: