SITA RAM MALI Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ALTHOUGH this petition has been filed by the petitioner simply for enforcing the principle of equal pay for equal work and for issue of a direction to the respondents to make payment of salary to the petitioner in the regular pay scale and even though the petitioner has come forward with a case that in the cases of similarly situated persons this Court has given directions for payment of salary according to the principle of equal pay for equal work, I have decided to consider the case in a large perspective because the learned counsel for the petitioner has come forward with the plea that even though no post of Class IV servant is available and even though the petitioner may have been appointed in contravention of law, the Court must give relief.

(2.) THE petitioner has come forward with a plea that he was engaged as a daily wage employee by the Settlement Commissioner, Rajasthan Jaipur in November, 1992. He was made to discharge duties as Class-lv servant and was paid a sum of Rs. 20/- per day. Between November 1992 to December 1993 he has worked as a daily wage employee and he has discharged the duties which are identical to the duties being performed by other Class IV servants. He says that since there is an identity in the nature of duties being performed by the petitioner, both qualitatively and quantitatively, he has a right to be paid salary in the regular pay scale. His plea is that right to get salary according to the principle of equal pay for equal work is fundamental right of a Government servant and by denying pay to the petitioner in the regular pay scale, the respondents have subjected him to discrimination. In this manner he has been denied equality before law.

(3.) THE malise towards which the Supreme Court had hinted in the case of Delhi Development Horticulture Employees Union vs. Delhi Administration (supra) and this Court in Ram Pratap vs. State of Rajasthan (supra) has apparently spread in all the departments of the Government and Settlement Department has proved to be no exception to it.