VIJAY SHARMA Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) LAW whether legislatively enacted or which finds its source as a result of consistent judicial pronouncements, commonly known as judge made law, is essentially mutable and progressive. The law must be understood and implemented in its correct perspective keeping the constitutional mandate in mind. While enforcing law, attainment of the ultimate legislative object and ends of justice should be the goal. Law with its limitations reflects the vision of the Society and its enforceability is the foundation of its acceptance. The law, as a vision, without the ability to execute, is probably an hallucination.

(2.) IN the present day to transmute the law into one understandable, executable and in consonance with the ground realities of the society is the implicit obligation of the concerned quarter. A rubric relatable to legislative or judicially enunciated law is required to achieve the Constitutional mandate. All laws must fall in comity to the constitution. The concept and principles of "equal pay for equal work" was held to be deducible from Articles 14 and 16 and 39(d) read in the light of the preamble of the Constitution. It was stated to be a constitutional goal though not expressly declared by the Constitution to be a fundamental right. An employee not regularly appointed by the employer can as a matter of rule claim equal pay for equal work or the liability of the employer would be restricted to making payment of prescribed rate for daily workers. This question hair come up for consideration before different courts on different occasions and has been answered differently, thus introducing some element of uncertainty to the judicial precepts for deciding cases involving such question. Consistent variation in judicial verdicts by different benches of this Court putatively persuaded a Division Bench of this Court to refer the matter to a larger bench. The Bench noticed the Full Bench judgments of this Court in the case of Ranbir Singh and the contrary view taken by the Latter Patent Bench in the case of Talwinder Singh. The referring bench also noticed the divergent view taken by the Hon'ble Apex Court in Devinder Singh on the one hand and in the cases of Jasmer Singh and Ghaziabad Development Authority on the other hand. A Division Bench of this Court, - vide its order dated 18th December, 1999 directed the matter to be placed before Hon'ble the Chief Justice to constitute a larger Bench at an early date for answering the point of reference. This Full Bench was, thus, constituted to answer the question formulated by the referring bench in the opening lines of the referring order, which read as under:

(3.) BEFORE we proceed to discuss the various aspects which require consideration of the court to enable it to answer the question formulated above, it is necessary for us to notice judgments of the Apex Court other than the ones referred in the reference order and where somewhat divergent views have been taken. Detailed reference to some of the pertinent judgments of the Apex Court where one or the other view has been predicated for a considerable time, would help to resolve the controversy. In the cases of Randhir Singh v. Union of India and Ors. : AIR 1982 S.C. 879 and Bhagwati Par shad v. Delhi State Mineral Corporation : AIR 1990 S.C. 371, a Bench of three Hon'ble Judges of the Apex Court had enunciated the principle that right to equal pay for equal work if not equatable to a fundamental right was certainly the constitutional goal of a democratic, social and republic set up like our country. This view has been followed in various judgments and in fact till recently in the case of Food Corporation of India v. Shyamal K. Chatterjee, 2000 (4) SCT 689, and Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 6285 of 1997, Chandigarh Administration and Ors. v. Ved Pal and Ors. decided on October 17, 2000.