Case: M.P. Rural Agrl.Extension Offrs.Asson Vs. State Of M.P.

2. The appellant herein is an Association of Rural Agriculture Extension Officers (hereinafter referred to as the Extension Officers). They were originally appointed as Village Level Workers. They are matriculates. The services of the Village Level Workers were transferred to the agriculture department of the State. It framed rules in the year 1972. On or about 9.4.1981, the designation of the Village Level Workers was changed to the Rural Agriculture Extension Officer by the State Government. The State of Madhya Pradesh in exercise of the power conferred upon it under the Proviso appended to Article 309 of the Constitution of India made rules known as Madhya Pradesh Revision of Pay Rules, 1983. Rule 3 of the said Rules reads as under:3. Revised Scale of PayThe revised scale of pay applicable to any post carrying existing scale shown in columns 2 and 3 of Annexures I and II respectively shall be the correspondinge shown in column 4 thereof respect of that post3. By reason of the provisions of the said Rules, two different scales of pay were prescribed, namely, Rs. 575s (Dying scale) and Rs.for fresh recruitment and for existing B.Sc. / B.Sc. Agriculture. By reason of an executive instruction dated 2/5.3.1984, the decision of the State Government was communicated to the Director, Agriculture, the relevant portion whereof is to the following effect. Essential educational qualification for the post of Rural Agricultural Extension Officer being graduation (for all departments) be fixed and all the graduates so employed be paid by the. All those graduate employees who were working to the posts in all departments prior to 1.4.81 should be paid given a salary at the rate of Rs.. 2. * * * * 3. * * * * This sanction endorsement vide notification No. 5/385/84, Dept. 1/ Four dated 3.3.84 had been endorsed in the records of the Accountant Generals Office4. Yet again by an amendment to the rule by a notification dated 5.9.1984 ine (2) in Part B of the said Rules the words for an recruitments and for the qualification B.Sc./ B.Sc. (Agri.) pass were replaced by the words for new recruitments and for graduates holding the degree. The appellant herein filed a writ petition before the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur praying, inter alia, for the following reliefs:b) That the pay scale of Rural Agriculture Extension Officers be given in accordance with the ratio given in AIR 1984 Supreme Court 1221 and it should be enhanced with the cadres stated in the above paras by giving them maximum pay scale, as has been given to any one of those cadres5. On constitution of the Madhya Pradesh State Administrative Tribunal in the year 1988, however, the said writ petition was transferred thereto. The Tribunal gave several opportunities to the respondents herein to file a return but despite its failure to do so and despite holding that a clear case of hostile discrimination has been made out in view of the decision of this Court in Union of India and another vs. P.V. Hariharan and Another (1997) 3 SCC 568) (JT 1997 SC 569) held that the grievances of the applicant regarding pay scale had to be dealt with by the Pay Commission. A writ petition filed there against before the Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court by the appellant was also dismissed in view of the judgment of this Court in Hariharan (supra) observing:.... More so, there can always be a classification on the basis of graduation andn in the pay scale. Thus, we are satisfied that there is no ground to interfere with the order. Hence, this petition is dismissed.

Reasoning: It is trite that the Pay Commission on or about 13.10.1982 and in the year 1999 desired and recommended that the same scale of pay be given to the Extension Officers irrespective of their educational qualification, but it is not in dispute that the recommendations of the Pay Commission were not accepted by the State. The relevant portion of the recommendations of the Pay Commission and the order of the State GovernmentAlthough the Pay Commission is considered to be an expert body, the State in its wisdom an in furtherance of a valid policy decision may or may not accept its recommendations. The State in exercise of of its jurisdiction conferred upon it by the proviso appended to Article 309 of the Constitution of India can unilaterally make or amend the conditions of service of its employees by framing appropriate rules. The State in terms of the said provision is also entitled to give a retrospective effect thereto. A policy decision had been adopted by the State that the post of Extension Officers shall be filled up only by graduates. Such a policy decision ex facie cannot be termed to be arbitrary or irrational attracting the wrath of Article 14 of the Constitution of India14. Article 14, it is trite, does not forbid a reasonable classification. 15. Article 14 forbids class legislation but permits reasonable classification subject to the conditions that it is based on an intelligible differentia and that the differentia must have a rational relation to the object sought to be achieve16. Constitutional interpretation is a difficult task. Its concept varies from statute to statute, fact to fact, situation to situation and subject matter to subject matter. A classification based on educational qualification has been applied by a Constitution Bench of this Court as far back as in 1968 in P. Narasinga Rao (supra), wherein it was observed: It is well settled that though Article 14 forbids class legislation, it does not forbid reasonable classification for the purpose of legislation. When any impugned rule or statutory provision is assailed on the ground that it contravenes Article 14, its validity can be sustained if two tests are satisfied. The first test is that the classification on which it is founded must be based on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes persons or things grouped together from others left out of the group, and the second test is that the differentia in question must have a reasonable relation to the object sought to be achieved by the rule or statutory provision in question. In other words, there must be some rational nexus between the basis of classification and the object intended to be achieved by the statute or the rule. As we have already stated. Articles 14 and 16 form part of the same constitutional code of guarantees and supplement each other. In other words, Art. 16 is only an instance of the application of the general rule of equality laid down in Art. 14 and it should be construed as such. Hence there is no denial of equality of opportunity unless the person who complains of discrimination is equally situated with the person or persons who are alleged to have been favoured, Article 16(1) does not bar a reasonable classification of employees or reasonable tests for their selection26. True it may be that when recommendations are made by a Pay Commission, evaluation of job must be held to have been made but the same by itself may not be a ground to enforce the recommendations by issuing a writ of or in the nature of mandamus although the State did not accept the same in toto and made rules to the contrary by evolving a policy decision which cannot be said to arbitrary or discriminatory. 27. For the reasons aforementioned, we are of the opinion that no case has been made for our interference with the impugned judgment.