In C.A.No. 8329 of 2011-SC- Though doctrine of ‘equal pay for equal work’ is not abstract doctrine and is capable of being enforced in Court of Law, equal pay must be for equal work of equal value: Supreme Court
Justices Bela M. Trivedi & Ajay Rastogi [22-02-2023]

Read Judgment: UNION OF INDIA v. INDIAN NAVY CIVILIAN DESIGN OFFICERS ASSOCIATION AND ANR 

Mansimran Kaur

New Delhi, February 23, 2023: Nature of work involved in two posts may sometimes appear to be more or less similar, however, if the classification of posts and determination of pay scale have reasonable nexus with the objective sought to be achieved, then the Pay Commissions would be justified in recommending and the State would be justified in prescribing different pay scales for the seemingly similar posts, the Supreme Court has observed.

By allowing the present appeal instituted by  the appellant-Union of India challenging the judgment passed by the High Court of Delhi whereby the High Court dismissed the Writ Petition filed by the appellant and confirmed the judgment passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal in an original application, the Division bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Ajay Rastogi observed that the Tribunal and the High Court had committed gross error in interfering with the pay scales recommended by the Fifth Central Pay Commission and accepted by the appellant for the posts of JDOs and CTOs, and in upgrading the pay scale of JDOs making it equivalent to the pay scale of CTOs. 

The respondent-Indian Navy Civilian Design Officers Association had by way of filing the Original application before the Tribunal, challenged the decision of the appellant rejecting their representation for the grant of pay scale of Rs 7500-12000 to the Junior Design Officers as allowed to the Civilian Technical Officers (Design), consequent to the implementation of the Fifth Central Pay Commission. 

As per the case of the respondent-association, the cadre of Design officers in the Indian Navy was created in the year 1965 in order to meet with the functional requirements of Navy regarding specific assignments to the Naval dockyards, Training, Establishments, Directorate of Naval Design and other Technical Directorates of Naval Headquarters. So far as the disciplines of Construction, Electrical and Engineering were concerned, the Group B gazetted posts were designated as Junior Design Officers (JDOs), and for Armament disciplines, the Group B gazetted posts were designated as Civilian Technical Officers (CTOs) (Design). The Recruitment Rules governing the JDOs notified were amended by SRO 246. 

 As per the further case of the respondent-Association, up to the Fifth Central Pay Commission, all the pay scales of all the disciplines and all grades were the same, however, after the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission, the pay scale of Rs.7500-12000 was fixed for the CTOs, whereas the pay scale of Rs.7450-11500 was fixed for the JDOs. 

Since the pay scales of the feeder cadre had remained the same in all the disciplines, the respondent-Association had made representation to the appellant for the grant of revised pay scale of Rs. 7500-12000 to the JDOs as allowed to the CTOs (Design) consequent upon the implementation of the Fifth Central Pay Commission. 

The Ministry of Finance having rejected the respondents proposal for upgradation of the pay scale, the respondent-Association had filed the O.A. before the Tribunal. The Tribunal through   order dated November 1, 2004 disposed of the said O.A. with direction to the appellant to consider the parity of pay scale of JDOs along with CTOs by evaluating their duties and responsibilities and to pass a detailed speaking order.

Being aggrieved by the said order, the respondent-Association had preferred the appeal which came to be allowed .The Tribunal set aside the order passed by the appellant-UOI and directed the appellant to grant to the JDOs, the pay scale of Rs. 7500-12000 at par with Group B gazetted posts of CTOs (Design) from the same date as it was given to the Group B gazetted posts with all consequential benefits. 

The appellant being aggrieved by the said order passed by the Tribunal had filed a petition which came to be dismissed by the High Court by the impugned order.

After considering the submissions from both the sides, the Court noted that the  main question that fell  for consideration before this Court was  whether the Tribunal and the High Court were justified in equating the posts of JDOs with CTOs, and in fixing the pay scales of JDOs equivalent to that of CTOs, in utter disregard of the legal position settled by this Court in catena of decisions to the effect that the Courts should not interfere with the complex issues of evaluating the nature of duties and responsibilities of posts, and of fixing the pay scales, which task otherwise is best done by the expert bodies like the Pay Commission.

In view of the same, the Court opined, “...it deserves to be noted that the power of judicial review of the High Courts in the matter of classification of posts and determination of pay scale is no more res integra. It has been consistently held by this Court in plethora of decisions that equation of posts and equation of salaries is a complex matter which is best left to an expert body unless there is cogent material on record to come to a firm conclusion that a grave error had crept in while fixing the pay scale for a given post and the interference of the Court was absolutely necessary to undo the injustice”.

Reference was placed on the judgment in State of U.P. and Others Vs. J.P. Chaurasia and Others and the Bench said, “...though the doctrine equal pay for equal work is not an abstract doctrine and is capable of being enforced in a Court of Law, the equal pay must be for equal work of equal value. The equation of posts and determination of pay scales is the primary function of the Executive and not of the Judiciary.”

 So far as the facts of the present case are concerned, it was not disputed that the probation period in case of CTOs is longer than that of JDOs. The duties and responsibilities of both the posts are different and the promotional avenues also have different duration and different criteria. There was not a single error, much less grave error pointed out by the Senior Advocate, in the fixation of the pay scales for the JDOs and CTOs, which would have justified the interference of the Tribunal, the Bench held.

Hence, in view of such observations, the Court allowed the appeal.