STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH Vs. CHET RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition is directed against the order -judgment dated 2nd July, 2003 of the Himachal Pradesh Administrative Tribunal whereby the Original Application filed by the respondents has been allowed and they have been held entitled to the pay scale of Rs.400 -600 with effect from March 1, 1980 as revised from time to time. However, the respondents have been held entitled to arrears only from the period of filing of Original Application before the Administrative Tribunal.

(2.) The respondents are working as cooks in the Department of Health and Family Welfare. Invoking the principle of equal pay for equal work they claimed that they are entitled to pay scale of Rs.400 -600 analogy of pay scale of cooks working in the Tourism and Hospitality Department, cooks working in the Governors House, cooks working on the establishment of Indira Gandhi Medical College and its associate hospitals and on the basis of the judgment rendered by the Tribunal in TA No. 253 of 1986 pertaining to the cooks of Police Department The respondents demanded that their pay should at least be the same as the scale of pay of other cooks in the service of the Government They termed the action of the Government in not treating them equal to the cooks working in the other Departments of the Government as discriminatory and without any rational basis.

(3.) As already noticed, the learned Administrative Tribunal has allowed the Original Application of the respondents and they have been held entitled to the pay scale of Rs.400 -600 with effect from March 1, 1980 as revised from time to time. The tribunal in this regard took into consideration that the nature of work being performed by the respondents is the same and similar to the one by the cooks working in the other Departments of the Government. The Tribunal also took into consideration that the cooks of Police Department had earlier come to the Court by filing CWP No. 618 of 1985, which was later -on transferred to it and registered as TA No. 253 of 1986 for the grant of pay scale on parity basis with the cooks working in the Governors House, Department of Tourism and Hospitality etc. and the said TA was allowed and they were held entitled to the pay scale of Rs.400 -600 with effect from March 1, 1980. The Government being aggrieved by the said order took the matter to the Supreme Court by filing SLP (Civil) No. 15011/1996, but the same was dismissed by the Supreme Court on January 20, 1997.