LPA 99 of 2011 (O&M) 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. LPA No. 99of 2011 (O&M) Date of decision 21 .1.2011 Examiner Local Fund and others ... Appellants Versus Harvinder Singh ... Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M. KUMAR HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE T.P.S.MANN Present: Mr.Suvir Sehgal, Addl. Advocate General Punjab 1.To be referred to the Reporter or not ? 2.Whether the judgement should be reported in the Digest ? M.M.KUMAR, J. The instant appeal is directed against the judgement dated 10.8.2010 rendered by the learned Single Judge holding that the writ petitioner- respondents are entitled to the pay scales which have been granted to the Accountants. In other words, the writ petitioner- respondents who have been working on the post of Sr. Scale Stenographer/ Personal Assistant have been treated for the purposes of grant of pay scale equivalent to that of Accountants. the learned Single Judge has noticed that on the basis of the judgement rendered by the learned Single Judge of this Court in CWP No. 13452 of 1993 decided on 27.9.2001 (Raj Pal Verma v. PAU Ludhiana). The Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana (for brevity 'the University') had treated the writ petitioner- respondents equivalent to the Accountants for the purpose of pay scale. The University preferred LPA No.537 of 2002 which was dismissed by a Division Bench of this Court on 10.5.2002 (P.2). Even the SLP No. 12365 of 2002 was dismissed by the LPA 99 of 2011 (O&M) 2 Hon'ble Supreme Court on 22.7.2002. It has come on record that after the dismissal of SLP by Hon'ble the Supreme Court, the University proceeded to implement the directions issued by this Court. In that regard the University issued a letter dated 11.11.2002 (P.3) holding that wherever the right of the parties have been settled by the judgement of the Court and the State has exhausted all the remedies available to it upto the highest Court then the judgement must be accepted and it should be implemented in its letter and spirit. The State must grant the same relief to other similarly situated employees. Accordingly the benefit of the judgement was granted to the writ petitioner- respondents. The aforesaid letter was eventually implemented as is evident from the memos issued by the Comptroller of the University on 26.2.2004. As a sequel to the aforesaid correspondence of the University, the learned Single Judge has rightly observed that the University has taken a conscious decision to grant the benefit even to those who were party to the litigation in the case of Raj Pal Verma and others (supra). The instant appeal has been preferred by the Examiner, Local Fund Accounts and its officers who had raised audit objection on the basis of the observations made by the Hon'ble Supreme Court while dismissing the SLP on 22.7.2002 (R.1). Accordingly the audit objection was raised and the detail of the anomalies were pointed out to the University authorities (R.2). Mr. Suvir Sehgal, learned Addl. Advocate General has argued that a perusal of the order passed in the SLP by Hon'ble the Supreme Court would show that the relief granted in Raj Pal Verma's case (supra) was specifically confined to the employees who had filed the writ petition and were parties to the litigation. A pointed reference has been made to the LPA 99 of 2011 (O&M) 3 observations made by Hon'ble the Supreme Court to the effect that if any other petition was to be filed then the same was to be decided on its own merits. According to Mr. Sehgal, the University could not have granted the benefit of the judgement to the writ petitioner- respondents automatically and the matter was required to be considered afresh on merits. Having heard the learned Addl. Advocate General, Punjab, we do not find any merit in the submission made by him. To appreciate the submission made by Mr. Sehgal, a close scrutiny of the order passed by Hon'ble the Supreme Court would be necessary, which reads as under: “ Learned counsel urged that there was an inordinate delay in claiming arrears of revised salary and, therefore, the High Court ought not to have entertained the said claims. We find that in the year 1993, the representation filed by the respondents was decided by the petitioners partly accepting the grievance of the respondents. Immediately thereafter, the respondents filed a petition under Article 226 before the High Court. We, therefore, do not find any merit in the contention. The special leave petition is accordingly dismissed. However, the relief granted by the High Court High Court shall be confined to the respondents only. If any other petition is filed that will be decided on its own merits.” A close examination of the judgement and the observations made therein would show that the SLP was dismissed on merits. It was, however, clarified that the relief granted by this Court was to be confined to the writ petitioners in that litigation only. It is significant to notice that if any other petition is filed then that was to be decided on its own merits. Admittedly, no writ petition was filed by the petitioner- respondents to claim the relief given to the employees similarly situated namely Sr. Scale Stenographers/ Personal Assistants. The University on its own has granted the relief by LPA 99 of 2011 (O&M) 4 issuance of memos dated 11.11.2002 (P.3) and 26.2.2004 (P.4). The pay scales equivalent to the pay scale of the Accountant was granted. It is evident from the perusal of the reply to the legal notice sent by the University on 25.11.2009 (P.6). The observations made by the University authorities is that ' the University authorities have already granted the similar benefits to such Sr. Scale Stenographers as granted to Sh. Raj Pal Verma and others, the petitioners of CWP No. 13542 of 1993 in the Hon'ble Punjab and Haryana High Court. But the Deputy Controller (Local Audit) has raised objection to the grant of such benefits and has with-held the subsequent benefits like annual increments, ACP and promotional increments of such officials.' Therefore, the writ petitioners were compelled to approach this Court because certain consequential benefits were withheld at the instance of the appellant. Accordingly we are of the view that the observations made by Hon'ble the Supreme Court while dismissing the SLP do not create any bar on the authorities to extend the same benefit which was extended to Raj Pal Verma and others. Therefore, the view taken by the learned Single Judge would not suffer from any legal infirmity warranting interference of this Court. Accordingly we reject the submission made by the learned Addl. Advocate General and dismiss the appeal. (M.M.Kumar) Judge (T.P.S.Mann ) 21.1.2011 Judge okg