P S JAMWAL Vs. STATE OF J&K

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE questions of paramount importance which are required to be considered in this petition are whether a proposal or a rule framed by the Chief Justice and sent by the High Court of a State on behalf of the Chief Justice to the Governor or the State Government, as the case may be, for its approval, can be rejected straightway and whether an employee working in a judicial system is to be treated differently than the one working in any other department of the State and whether the administrative set up of the State is free to adopt a discriminator approach in considering the genuine claim of such an employee. While considering these aspects, the first thought which came in my mind was that the Judiciary in our country should have the financial powers so that such like matters as involved in the case in hand are not referred to the State authorities because more often than not such matters do not reach a just conclusion and their fate remains undecided resulting in nothing but a great frustration to the employees working in the judicial system and sometimes, inaction on the part of State authorities in not considering the proposals sent by the High Courts, results in paralysing the whole judicial working/setup.

(2.) THE facts in the present case are that the petitioner who is a Law Graduate and also possessing the qualification of M.Lib Science is working as a Reader in the scale of Rs. 7500 -12000/ -. He was initially appointed as Chief Librarian in the High Court vide Order No. 722 dt. 16th of Nov 87 in the pay scale of Rs. 1650 -2800/ - later on revised to Rs. 6700 -10700/ -. The said post in terms of the Jammu and Kashmir Libraries (Gazetted) Service Recruitment Rules, 1991(SRO 16 of 1991 dt. 8th of Jan 91) is a gazetted post. Subsequently, vide SRO 234 of 1991 dated 30th of July91, the post of Chief Librarian was placed in the pay scale of Rs. 2200 -75 -2800 -100 -4000/ - and this effect was given from 1.1.1986. The said pay scale has been now revised to Rs. 8000 -275 -13500/ -.

(3.) THE grievance of the petitioner is that as he came to be appointed as Chief Librarian in the pay scale of Rs. 1650 -2800 (un -revised), later on revised to Rs. 6700 -10700/ -, which pay scale was then revised to Rs. 2200 -4000 (unrevised) now revised to Rs. 8000 -13500, he was not given the benefit in terms of SRO 234, so far as declaring the post of Chief Librarian against which he came to be directly recruited and placing him in the grade of Rs. 8000 -13500/ -. It is stated that as the said SRO was given effect to from 1st of Jan 86, he should also have been given the benefit of pay scale of Rs. 8000 -13500/ - w.e.f., the date of his appointment i.e., 16th of Nov87 in terms of the SRO aforementioned. It is stated that a representation in this regard was submitted by the petitioner before the authority concerned on 6th of March Rs.92. The case of the petitioner was recommended by the said authority vide May92 addressed to the Secretary to Government, Law Department, Srinagar, but despite that the case of the petitioner has not been considered. It is further stated that thereafter number of reminders were sent by the Registrar (General), High Court of J&K to the authorities concerned for consideration of the case of the petitioner in terms of the SRO aforementioned but nothing has been done by the respondent authorities. A direction is thus sought to respondents to consider the claim of the petitioner for according him benefit in terms of SROs 16 and 234 of 1991.