IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.4434 of 2000 Date of decision: 20.08.2009 Punjab State Electricity Board, Patiala …Petitioner versus General Secretary, Anandpur Sahib Mazdoor Union Regd.(AITUC), Kiln Area, Nangal,District Ropar (Punjab) and another ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN Present: Mr. Paramjit Singh Thiara, Advocate, for the petitioner. None for the respondent. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? Yes. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? Yes. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? Yes. K.Kannan, J.(Oral) 1. Out of the several demands made by the workers through their Union, the Industrial Tribunal accepted only Demand No.13 through which the Union was pleading for parity of scales for the work charged employees with the scales of pay that were admissible to the regular employees. The Tribunal accorded to the workman the demand as made and the management is in the writ petition before this Court. 2. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner refers me to the decision in Punjab State Electricity Board and others Versus Dharam Singh and others-2008(1) SCT 565, that a parity of pay between regular employees and work charged employees doing similar or same work cannot always be taken as discriminatory and if Civil Writ Petition No.4434 of 2000 - 2 - discrimination, it was on the basis of intelligible differentia and it was always possible for the Board to prescribe lower pay scales for work charged employees than the pay scales applicable to the regularly employed persons. The principle of same scale for same work shall always be understood in the context of the nature of employment, the duties attached to the post and the category of employment. It is not an universal rule that can be applied without reference to different circumstances and different categories of workmen. The decision referred to above squarely answers the problem raised and the order of the Industrial Tribunal being out of sync with the law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court deserves to be set aside and accordingly set aside. 3. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner states that all these workmen who were work charged employees were subsequently regularized and they were also put on regular scales of pay. The dispute itself related to the particular period when they were working as work charged employees. The statement of the learned counsel is taken on record. 4. The order of the Industrial Tribunal, under the circumstances, is set aside and the writ petition is allowed. No costs. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 20.08.2009 sanjeev