CWP(T) No. 2432 of 2008. 02.03.2009 Present: Ms. Ranjana Parmar, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. R.K. Sharma, Senior Additional Advocate General with Mr. Rajinder Dogra, Additional Advocate General and Mr. Vikas Rathore, Deputy Advocate General for the respondents. The petitioner was promoted to the post of Auditor on the basis of recommendations made by the Departmental Promotion Committee on 7th March, 1975. He was further promoted as Inspector, Co-Operative Societies and was posted with Project Officer, I.G.A.P., Palampur vide office order dated 5th April, 1975. However, his pay was not fixed on the post of Auditor. He made various representations to the higher authorities. The case of the petitioner was recommended by the District Co-Operative and Supplies Officer thereafter on 16th May, 1980. A bare perusal of Annexure A-7/A dated 16th May, 1980 shows that four persons, namely, S/Shri Pyare Lal, Devinder Singh, Nithan Singh and Parkash Chand who were junior to the petitioner were put to higher pay-scale and the petitioner at the relevant time was getting Rs.240/- as basic pay. The Registrar, Co- Operative Societies also favourably recommended the case of the petitioner to the Government of Himachal Pradesh. The Registrar, Co-Operative Societies has categorically held that there was no fault on the part of the petitioner to join against the post of Auditor before joining his duties as Inspector. In fact, the Registrar, Co-Operative Societies has given two options to the State Government; firstly to fix the pay of the petitioner as Auditor and then as Inspector and in the alternative his pay be stepped up to the level of pay of the juniors who were drawing the same pay as Sub-Inspectors. However, the State Government rejected the case of the petitioner on 19th July, 1994. The case of the State Government is that since the petitioner has not joined his duties as Auditor pursuant to letter dated 7th March, 1975, his pay could not be fixed against the post of Auditor. It has come on record that in fact, the petitioner was not made aware of office order dated 7th March, 1975. In case the petitioner had been informed about his promotion to the post of Auditor, there was no occasion for him not to join the higher post. In fact, the observation of the Registrar, Co-Operative Societies is also to the effect that the petitioner could not be faulted for not joining the duties on the post of Auditor. It is a case where the petitioner on the basis of action of the respondents is getting lesser pay than his juniors, namely, S/Shri Pyare Lal, Devinder Singh, Nithan Singh and Parkash Chand. It is settled law by now that a senior person cannot get lesser pay than his junior. Their Lordships of Hon’ble Supreme Court in Er. Gurcharan Singh Grewal & Another vs. Punjab State Electricity Board & Others, 2009(1) SCALE, 535 have held as under:- “Something may be said with regard to Mr. Chhabra’s submissions about the difference in increment in the scales which the appellant No.1 and Shri Shori are placed, but the same is still contrary to the settled principle of law that a senior cannot be paid lesser salary than his junior. In such circumstances, even if, there was s difference in the incremental benefits in the scale given to the appellant No.1 and the scale given to Shri Shori, such anomaly should not have been allowed to continue and ought to have been rectified so that the pay of the appellant No.1 was also stepped up to that of Shri Shori, as appears to have been done in the case of the appellant No.2.” The upshot of above discussion is that the petitioner cannot be faulted for not joining on the post of Auditor pursuant to letter dated 7th March, 1975. His pay was accordingly required to be fixed as Auditor and thereafter the same was required to be revised further after his promotion to the post of Inspector vide letter dated 5th April, 1975. Accordingly, the writ petition is allowed. Annexure A-11 and Annexure A-12 are quashed and set aside. The respondents are directed to fix the pay of the petitioner as Auditor and thereafter to revise the same in the category of Inspectors within a period of six weeks from today. There shall, however, be no order as to costs. (Rajiv Sharma), J. March 02, 2009. (sck)