IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.3751 of 2007 9. 5.3.2009 Birendra Kumar, son of Awadhesh Sharma, resident of village Narwa, P.S.Dulhin Bazar, District Patna ... PETITIONER VERSUS 1. The Union of India, through the Ministry for Personnel, Public Grievance and Pension, Department of Personnel and Training, New Delhi. 2. The Director, Central Bureau of Investigation, New Delhi. 3. The Deputy Director, Administration, Central Bureau of Investigation, ACB, Patna 4. The Director, Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, New Delhi .... RESPONDENTS -------- For the Petitioner : Mr Sanjay Kumar, Advocate For the CBI : Mr Bipin Kumar Sinha, SC/CBI ------- Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned counsel for the CBI. The claim of the petitioner for parity with non-gazetted executive staff of CBI in the matter of granting compensatory allowance for working on Saturdays/ Sundays/ holidays has been rejected by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Patna Bench, Patna by the impugned order dated 25th October, 2006 (Annexure-3). It has been submitted on behalf of the petitioner that there is no good reason to discriminate the petitioner who is a non-gazetted ministerial staff of the CBI with the non-gazetted executive staff like Inspectors etc. of CBI who are paid such 2 compensatory allowance. It was further submitted that counterparts of petitioner i.e. non-gazetted ministerial staff working in Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) are paid such compensatory allowance and, therefore, on the principle of equal pay for equal work, the petitioner’s claim for compensatory allowance should also have been allowed by the Tribunal. The counsel for the CBI has placed reliance upon averments made in paragraphs 5, 9 and 11 of the counter affidavit to submit that CBI is more or less like regular police establishment investigating certain types of criminal cases whereas the nature of work in the IB and the RAW is different. It was also submitted that as a matter of policy the CBI has been permitting compensatory casual leave in lieu of attending office on holidays to ministerial staff like the petitioner with a proviso that not more than two days compensatory leave is allowed to be availed at a time. In addition to above, the ministerial staff are granted honorarium for exceptional work to a maximum of Rs.2500/- in a year. Having paid our anxious consideration to the issue raised on behalf of the petitioner, we find that the matter relates to a policy decision in respect of salary and perks. Such matters should best be left to the experts as held by the Apex Court 3 recently in the Case of State of Bihar v. Bihar Veterinary Association, 2008(2) PLJR 176 (SC). Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed. But petitioner will be at liberty to raise his demand before appropriate technical body whenever the occasion arises to reconsider their salary and perks. (Shiva Kirti Singh, J.) (Sheema Ali Khan, J.) sk