IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.1034 of 2011 1. Prem Kumar Sinha, aged about 52 years, son of Sri Ram Nandan Pd. Sinha, resident of Mohalla – Balmiki Colony, P S – Brahmapura, District – Muzaffarpur. 2. Dr. Neeraj Kumar, son of late Yogendra Prasad Srivastava, resident of Mohalla Vidya Niketan Marg, P.S. Brahmapura, District- Muzaffarpur. 3. Sri Ravi Shankar Tiwary, son of late Satya Narayan Tiwary, resident of Mohalla – MIT Campus, P S – Brahmapura, District – Muzaffarpur. 4. Sri Bibekanand Thakur son of late Dwarika Thakur, resident of MIT Campus, P.S. Brahmapura, District – Muzaffarpur. 5. Rabindra Kumar, son of late Lokya Dutt Sharma, resident of Mohalla – MIT Campus, P S – Brahmapura, District – Muzaffarpur. 6. Laxman Swaroop Nagbanshi son of late Dwarika Prasad, resident of Mohalla - MIT Campus, P S – Brahmapura, District – Muzaffarpur. 7. Sri O P Vishwakarma son of late Bharthari Prasad Vishwakarma, resident of village – Kalhua Paigambarpur, P.S. Ahiyapur, District- Muzaffarpur. 8. Sri Niranjan Kumar Sinha son of late Giridhar Kumar Sinha, resident of MIT Campus, P S – Brahmapura, District – Muzaffarpur. 9. Sri Raman Nand Jha, son of Sri Deo Narayan Jha, resident of Mohalla - MIT Campus, P S – Brahmapura, District – Muzaffarpur. ______ Petitioners Versus 1. The State Of Bihar through the Principal Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Bihar, Patna. 2. The Principal Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Bihar, Patna. 3. The Director, Department of Science and Technology, Bihar, Patna. 4. The Joint Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Bihar, Patna. 5. The Dy. Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Bihar, Patna. 6. The Principal Secretary, Department of Finance, Bihar, Patna. ----------- 03. 5.7.2011 Petitioners were appointed as Lab Assistants many many years ago in the decade beginning 1980. As per the advertisement contained in Annexure-2, the educational requirement for the post was B.Sc. with Physics, Chemistry and 2 Mathematics with two years work experience or B.Sc. with Chemistry, Botany and Zoology with corresponding experience. After the appointment of the petitioners they have served the various Engineering Colleges or MIT as the case may be. The post carried pay scale given to them and when a revision in the pay-scale was effected in terms of the recommendations of the Pay Revision Committee in the year 1999, the Government notified the revised pay-scales for all the employees including the employees working in the MIT or Engineering Colleges in the State of Bihar. In the gazette notification under the remarks column, next to the revised pay-scales shown for Lab Assistant is 5000-8000, which reads as “if recruited with B.Sc. and Diploma/Certificate then scale to be admissible, otherwise Rs.4500-7000.” Petitioners drew the benefit of the revised pay-scale of Rs.5000-8000 all along. In fact, even the next pay revision has now been notified by the State of Bihar showing the earlier pay-scale to be Rs.5000 – 8000 and giving a corresponding revision, bringing them under the Pay Band as proposed in the 6th Pay Revision Committee of the Central Government. Petitioners have filed the writ application on the basis of the communication dated 8.11.2010 issued from the Department of Science and Technology, who are of the opinion that the pay-scale fixed for these petitioners is not in consonance with Government Resolution No.660 dated 3 8.2.1999. The interpretation which is sought to be given by them is that unless a person is B.Sc. with Diploma/Certificate, he would not be entitled to pay-scale of Rs.5000-8000 but Rs.4500- 7000. Based on Annexure-1, the pay-scales of the petitioners are sought to be reduced and even may be recovery effected. Submission of the counsel for these petitioners is that circumstantial evidence would show that there was a printing mistake in the remarks column in the gazette notification dated 13th February, 1999 because it should read B.Sc. or Diploma certificate and not „and‟. This anomaly has been pointed with regard to the employees who fall in what is known as Jharkhand State now and the said State issued a notification on 9th April, 2003 clarifying the position that word „and‟ has to be read as „or‟ because appointment on the post of Lab Assistant could be on the basis of a B.Sc. degree or a Diploma. It is not disputed that such correction or notification was never issued so far as the State of Bihar is concerned even though they were the original authors of the notification issued in the year 1999 prior to the bifurcation. Yet another stand which has been brought on record by the petitioners is that in 2009 recommendation or notification of the Pay Revision Committee, similar qualifications have been shown but here instead of the word „and‟ the word „or‟ has been used. 4 Obviously, the Science and Technology Department, therefore, is giving a very narrow interpretation to take away the benefit which was given to the petitioners in the last pay revision, which they enjoyed for more than 10 years. If the word „and‟ is read in the 1999 notification, anomalous position arises because there is no material on behalf of the State to show that any recruitment on the post of a Lab Assistant was being done on the basis of a B.Sc. degree with a Diploma / Certificate. In the opinion of this Court, no such qualification exists. The only interpretation therefore, which is required to be given to the word „and‟ is that it should be read as „or‟ and not as a conjunct as „and‟. If that is the only ground on which petitioners are now sought to be harassed by the parent department, which is Science and Technology Department, then Annexure-1 is required to be quashed and is quashed with a direction that the respondents will not interfere with the pay-scale of these petitioners and the requirement of B.Sc. and Diploma will be read as „or‟ and not „and‟. Writ is allowed. rkp ( Ajay Kumar Tripathi, J.)