CHAND KUMAR WAGUZARI Vs. UNION OF INDIA (UOI)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Having had lost before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench, where the Petitioner had sought for regularization as Stenographer grade-III or Office Assistant, Petitioner has approached this Court by filling the present writ petition.

(2.) The undisputed facts of this case are that the Petitioner was engaged as Daily Rated Mazdoor with effect from December 1, 1984, conferred temporary status with effect from October 1, 1989 and regularised as Mazdoor with effect from September 29, 1995. Petitioner is drawing salaries as that of a regularised Mazdoor. In the writ petition, he contended that he has been made to work as a Stenographer and, accordingly, he should be given the remuneration of a Stenographer. The Tribunal found as a fact that the Petitioner was working as a Stenographer but could not conclude whether he was made to work as such or his request to work as such was acceded to. There was no material before the Tribunal to come to the conclusion that a post of a Stenographer remained vacant and the work of the Stenographer, who could occupy the said vacant post, was obtained from the Petitioner. Tribunal also felt that the Petitioner was regularised as a Mazdoor and the same was accepted by the Petitioner. Before the Tribunal, it was contended that in 1991, a large number of people were appointed as Stenographers when the Petitioner was already working as such and there was no just reason not to consider regularization of the Petitioner as one of such Stenographers. Since the same was not an original plea in the application before the Tribunal and since all necessary materials required to go into the question whether appointment of such Stenographers was rightly done or not, the Tribunal refused to go into that question.

(3.) The principal contention in the application before the Tribunal as well as in the present writ petition is that the Petitioner is entitled to equal pay for equal work. It is his contention that he having had worked as a Stenographer should be remunerated as Stenographer. A person selected to discharge the duties of a Stenographer is not equal to a person who has not been so selected. Therefore, comparison in between such a person and a nonselectee, is not permissible. At the same time, an action to appoint certain persons as Stenographers does not ipso facto gives right to be appointed to another person unless it is shown and established that they stand on the same footing. In the absence of materials before us, it is not possible for us to into the question whether the Petitioner was placed at the same level as that of others who had been appointed thus as Stenographers.