IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.14901 of 1991 Date of decision: 29.04.2010 Sat Pal Puri and others ….Petitioners versus State of Punjab and others …Respondents II. Civil Writ Petition No.14902 of 1991 Gobind Ram Sharma ….Petitioner versus State of Punjab and others …Respondents III. Civil Writ Petition No.15240 of 1991 Mrs.Inder Kaur Makkar ….Petitioner versus State of Punjab and others …Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ------ Present: Ms. Alka Chatrath,Advocate, for the petitioners. Mr. Manohar Lall, Additional Advocate, General, Punjab. ----- K.Kannan, J (Oral) 1. All the above three writ petitions address the same issue and with the consent of both the counsel, they are taken up together and disposed of by common order. Civil Writ Petition No.14901 of 1991 - 2 - 2. The petitioners are JST qualified Teachers, who seek for application for grant of scale of 110-250 as given to similarly situated persons, who were working in various schools within the State of Punjab as B.T./B.Ed. trained Teachers. The contention of the petitioners is that the JST teachers and B.T. trained persons were admittedly in the same cadre and when the latter were put on a scale of 110-250, the petitioners could not have been discriminated and retained the scales of 80-250. The petitioners would place reliance on the judgment of Division Bench of this Court in Mrs. J.K.Pritam Singh and others Versus The State of Punjab and others-1967 SLR 251 that addressed the claims of persons, who complained of discrimination between JST and BT teachers for the purpose of further promotion and application of scales of pay. The Division Bench held that if JST teachers on the one hand and the BT teachers counter part on the other, were recruited by the same machinery on the basis of one general set of minimum qualifications and they started as one single unit in a joint cadre in one distinct service, a discrimination could not have been made for the sake of promotion alone. The claim for parity in scale with B.T.Teachers was, therefore, founded on a challenge of discrimination, if different scales were to be applied for persons in the same cadre. 3. The learned counsel appearing for the State would contend that the petitioners seek only for enforcement of what is provided in the instructions No.5056-FR-II-57/5600 that recognizes sub-groups within the same category. Persons, who had BA, BT, B.Ed. qualification were put on category-A, while persons, who were JSTs with B.A./Inter matric Civil Writ Petition No.14901 of 1991 - 3 - with J.V.S. Training, were in category-B in Group-II. The scale of pay 110-250 was given only to persons in category-A and JST in Group-II in category-B were only in scale 80-250. According to the learned counsel appearing for the State, the 1957 instructions themselves had been upheld by the Hon'ble Supreme Court and there being no particular challenge to the 1957 instructions, the petitioners were not entitled to ask for the same scales as given to persons for a different category. 4. There cannot be any objection for grant of any particular incentives to persons who possess higher qualification, but, in my view, it is not the same thing as providing for different scales of pay within the same cadre. A higher qualification may entitle a person for some additional payments, but it cannot obtain a benefit of a higher scales of pay for that would mean retaining within the same cadre heterogeneous scales of pay. It is to a situation like this that a Division Bench of this Court in Mrs. J.K.Pritam Singh referred to above, found that there could not be variation in treatment to teachers possessing JST qualification and B.Ed. qualifications. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioners also refers to a judgment of this Court in Baldev Raj Mittal and others Versus State of Punjab and others in Civil Writ Petition No.3931 of 1992 where this Court applied to JBT teachers the scale of pay of 110- 250, the scale that had been extended to B.T. Teachers. Shri Manohar Lall, the learned counsel for the State would contend that this judgment though stated that JBT teachers were entitled to application of scales of 110-250 did not address the issue of how different categories had been stipulated, of which one category comprised of persons, who had a BA Civil Writ Petition No.14901 of 1991 - 4 - and BT qualification and another category having JST training with intermediate qualification. According to him, JST trained persons were in a different group and they could not obtain parity in scales. Though the judgment in Baldev Raj does not specifically deal with instance of persons in two different categories, I still think it ought not to make a difference for we are considering a case of classes of persons, who were JST qualified but who were in the same cadre as persons, who were BT trained teachers. The case will only rest on whether it is possible to secure two different scales within the same cadre. The answer to that question cannot be that is possible, for, that would amount to bringing a discrimination within the same class of persons in the same cadre. The homogeneity obtains by the cadre that they belong although for the administration may provide for various categories within the same cadre for the administration purpose. 5. The petitioners are entitled to the relief as sought for and the writ petitions are allowed. There shall be however no directions as to costs. Needless to state that the petitioners shall obtain reckoning of appropriate refixation of scales and revisions of pay that have come about corresponding the increase of scales that they have been found entitled to. The entire exercise will be done within a period of 12 weeks from the date of the receipt of the copy of the order. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 29.04.2010 sanjeev