BINOD KUMAR SINGH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petition filed in the year 2012 essentially seeks for a higher pay scale on the date of appointment of the petitioner, which is 24/11/2000. The contention is also that similar persons were given the same benefit based on orders of this Court, to which the petitioner is also entitled to. The petitioner was appointed as a Statistical Enumerator in the pay- scale of Rs.4000.006000/- by the Director of Agriculture, Patna by appointment order dtd. 23/11/2000 marked as Annexure-6 to the writ application. The petitioner joined the said post and had been continuing therein and was also promoted to the higher post. The petitioner on joining, as per his own contention in the writ petition, found that there were other persons appointed to similar vacancies in the pay-scale of Rs.4000.006000/- (pre- revised 1200-1800/-) who were raising objection against their appointment to the post carrying a lower pay-scale. They were persons who were appointed pursuant to the selection carried out by Advertisement No. 6/85 for filling up equivalent posts of graduate level.

(2.) The Advertisement No. 6/85 led to the 2 nd graduate level examination carried out by the Bihar Subordinate Service Selection Board. The said Board was dissolved in 1991 and the selection was carried out by the newly constituted Bihar Public Service Commission (for brevity "BPSC"). Similarly, the selection initiated pursuant to Advertisement No. 1/90 was also concluded by the BPSC, which was the 3 rd graduate level examination. It is the contention of the petitioner that while appointments were made, the first appointments, of persons who were meritorious and ranked higher, were in the posts with the lower pay-scale, while the less meritorious appointed later, were to posts which have higher pay scales. It is this anomaly which is sought to be mitigated by the above writ petition; which litigious issue, it is claimed, has a history.

(3.) The first case referred to was a judgment by a Division Bench in Nagendra Sahni and Ors. v. State of Bihar and Ors., CWJC No. 8419 of 1992. The dispute was with respect to the pay-scales of Class III posts in three different departments of the Government of Bihar; the Agriculture Department, the Cooperative Department and the Labour Department. The posts were variously termed as Statistical Assistant, Senior Statistical Assistants, Statistical Investigator/ Junior Statistical Assistant in the respective departments. These were all equivalent posts and the 4th Pay Revision Committee recommended a pay-scale of Rs.850.00 to 1360 in relation to various posts in Grade III, which was accepted by the State Government. For some of the posts which were in Grade II, as per the recommendation of the 4 th Pay Revision Committee; the State Government fixed scale of pay at Rs.785.00 to 1210. All these posts, 16 in number were filled up pursuant to one competitive examination and the graduates who were eligible to apply were so appointed contemporaneously in the various departments to the different posts. The pay revision committee's recommendation gave rise to a heart-burn to persons continuing in some of the services which were earlier treated equivalent. This led to a claim that all the 16 posts should be given the same pay-scale of Rs.850.00 to 1360. This issue agitated, substantially different from the present issue, was resolved in the aforecited decision. By the time the matter was heard by the Court, the 5th Pay Revision Committee was constituted which had recommended the pay- scale of Rs.1500.002750 to the pre-revised scale of Rs.850.00 to 1360. The Division Bench found that there is no reasonable nexus in having different scales of pay to 16 posts filled up through one recruitment who were all continuing in the same pay-scale before the 4th Pay Revision Commission. The Division Bench directed that every person appointed to one post or the other enumerated in Annexure-1 were to be granted the higher scale. The aforesaid judgment was passed on 22/9/1993 and the petitioner cannot have any claim that it is of identically situated persons since, he was not appointed to the service at that point of time.