HARYANA STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD Vs. BALWAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Respondents are the employees of the Haryana State Electricity Board (for short the Board) and are working as Technicians Grade-11 in the Panipat Thermal Power Plant at Panipat. As per the policy framed by the Board in regard to the recruitment and promotion of its employees working in the Thermal Power projects, 50% of the posts of Technicians Grade-II are to be filled up by direct recruitment and the remaining 50% by promotion from the post of Helper Grade-I with three years experience as such. The grievance of the respondents is that the pay scale of their post and that of Helper Grade-I is the same even though the post of Helper Grade-I is a feeder post for further promotion to the post of Technician Grade-II. This, according to them, is an anomaly which ought to be removed and they made several representations to the Board in this regard. Since no action was taken on their representations, they filed Civil Writ Petition 13570 of 1995 in this Court which was allowed by a learned Single Judge on September 25, 2001 holding that the pay scale of the higher post of Technician Grade-II should be one step higher as compared to the feeder post. The Board was directed to remove the anomaly in the matter of pay scales of the two posts. It is against this order of the learned Single Judge that the present appeal has been filed under Clause X of the Letters Patent.

(2.) We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and are of the view that the appeal deserves to be dismissed. The pay scales of the two posts had from the beginning been different and the post of Helper Grade-I carried a lower scale of pay. It was for the first time in May, 1990 that the two-posts were equated in the matter of their pay scales when the same were revised by the Board. It is common case of the parties that prior to 1.1.1986 the post of Helper Grade-I carried the pay scale of Rs. 350-600 whereas that of Technician Grade-II had the scale of Rs. 400-700. When the pay scales were revised w.e.f. 1.1.986 the grades of the TWO posts were again different. The post of Helper Grade-I carried the scale of Rs. 825-1300 whereas Technician Grade-II was in the scale of Rs. 950-1500. Not only this, the post of Helper Grade-I is a feeder post from which post promotions are made to the higher post of Technician Grade-II. In such a situation we are clearly of the view that the two posts cannot be equated in the matter of their pay scales. As held by this Court in Sunder Lal Jain and Ors. v. State of Haryana and Ors., 1995(1) SLR 215, it is wholly unreasonable to place a lower post and a higher post in the same pay scale. Where a lower post is equated in the matter of pay scale with the promotional post then it is a clear anomaly which is highly irrational and has to be removed. This is precisely what the learned Single Judge has done. The Apex Court in Tarsem Singh and Anr. v. State of Punjab and Ors., (1994)5 S.C.C. 392 observed that the promotion is always a step towards advancement to a higher position, grade or honour and that promotion as understood in service law jurisprudence means advancement in rank and grade or both. We are, therefore, of the opinion that if promotion is an advancement in rank and grade or both, the promotional post cannot carry the same pay scale as that of the feeder post and that it must carry a higher scale. No fault can thus, be found with the direction issued by the learned Single Judge.

(3.) In the result, the appeal fails and the same stands dismissed leaving the parties to bear their own costs.