CWP No. 4117 of 1992 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No. 4117 of 1992 Date of decision : April 02, 2009 Haryana Employment Officers Association ...... Petitioner (s) v. State of Haryana through its Financial Commissioner and Secretary to Govt. of Haryana ...... Respondent(s) *** Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ajay Tewari *** Present : Mr. Vikas Chatrath, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. A.K. Gupta, Addl. A.G., Haryana. *** 1. Whether Reporters of Local Newspapers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest ? *** Ajay Tewari, J. The petitioner is an association of the employment officers of the State of Haryana. The dispute raised is with regard to the pay revision which was carried out w.e.f. 1.1.1986. The petitioner claim that they should have been placed in the pay scale of 2000-3500 w.e.f. 1.1.1986 as against the original revision of pay scale of Rs. 1640-2900(later increased to 2000- 3200 w.e.f. 1.10.1991). As regards the claim of the petitioner-association CWP No. 4117 of 1992 2 with regard to fixing their pay in the scale of Rs. 2000-3500 from 1.1.1986 is concerned, there is a catena of judgments which restrict the parameters on which such decisions can be challenged in Court. Reference may be made in this regard to State of Haryana & Others v. Jagroop Singh reported as 2003(2) SCT 226 wherein the Hon'ble Supreme Court held as follows:- “The High Court is of the opinion that once the Government takes a decision modifying the recommendation of the pay commission, it should relate back to the date on which the recommendation of the pay commission had been given effect to. In our view, the High Court was in error in coming to the aforesaid conclusion. The Government on the basis of representations made and suggestions received as well as qualifications for different posts have modified the pay scale, so far as the respondent's post is concerned to Rs. 1200-2040 with effect from 1.5.1990 and it appears that the recommendations in respect of all these posts were with effect from that particular date, namely 1.5.1990. We see no infirmity with that decision of the Government requiring interference by the court in exercise of its discretionary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution particularly when the respondent in the writ petition never assailed the legality of the aforesaid notification.” Learned counsel for the petitioner argued that in the present case the petitioner-association had challenged the notification dated 1.9.91 (Annexure P-1). However, in my opinion the ratio of the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court extracted above could not be construed to lay down that the determining factor was the lack of challenge to the notification. This was only an additional factor considered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. CWP No. 4117 of 1992 3 In my opinion the ratio would be that the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that a decision that is not shown to be palpably arbitrary could not be substituted by the view of this Court. In S.K.Bishnoi V. The State of Haryana reported as 1993(4) SCT 127 a Division Bench of this Court after considering the entire law on the subject held as follows:- “An employe cannot urge that since the State has failed to identify the comparable post or create a new post for implementing the Pay Commissio0n's recommendation forthwith, he should be allowed the benefit of revised pay scale with retrospective effect, viz., from the date the Pay Commission's report was made applicable.” The Hon'ble Bench quoted the following extract from the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in State of U.P. v. J.P. Chaurasia, AIR 1989 S.C. 19:- “The first question regarding entitlement to the pay scale admissible to Section Officers should not detain us longer. The answer to the question depends upon several factors. It does not just depend upon either the nature of work or volume of work done by Bench Secretaries. Primarily it requires among others, evaluation of duties and responsibilities of the respective posts. More often functions of two posts may appear to be the same or similar, but there may be different in degrees in the performance. The quantity of work may be the same, but quality may be different that cannot be determined by relying upon averments in affidavits of interested parties. The equation of posts or equation of pay must be left to the Executive Government. It must be determined by expert bodies like Pay Commission.; They would be the CWP No. 4117 of 1992 4 best judge to evaluate the nature of duties and responsibilities of posts. If there is any such determination by a Commission or Committee, the Court should normally accept it. The Court should not try to tinker with such equivalent unless it is shown that it was made with extraneous consideration.” (emphasis supplied). I have heard counsel for the parties. A mass of detail has been placed on the record by both sides assailing and defending the decision. In my opinion learned counsel for the petitioner has not been able to substantiate any allegation regarding the pay fixation having been done for extraneous consideration. Consequently this writ petition is dismissed. (AJAY TEWARI) JUDGE April 02, 2009 sunita