Steel Authority Of India Ltd.& Ors vs Dibyendu Bhattacharya

3. Facts and circumstances giving rise to this appeal are that the appellant No.2 issued an advertisement in "The Statesman"

4. Being aggrieved, the respondent preferred the writ petition before the High Court claiming the same relief, however, the learned Single Judge dismissed the same vide judgment and order dated 16.9.2005. The respondent challenged the said judgment by filing an intra court appeal. The said appeal has been allowed, issuing direction to the present appellants to grant the pay-scale to the respondent as was being paid to Shri B.V. Prabhakar at the Rourkela Steel Plant in the executive cadre and that too from the date of his initial appointment. The arrears also were to be paid within six weeks. Hence, this appeal.

5. Shri Rajiv Dhawan, learned senior counsel appearing for the appellants has submitted that the said B.V. Prabhakar had been appointed vide order dated 20.4.1987 in Rourkela Steel Plant in 3 executive cadre in E-1 grade taking into account his experience in service in the Bokaro Steel Plant, another unit of the company. There are different set of rules governing the services of the employees of all different plants/units of the company and all the employees are not governed by the Central Rules. The respondent has not been appointed in the centralised service nor is his post transferable. The mode of appointment and selection of employees in each unit is different and made independently. The respondent had applied in pursuance of an advertisement dated 22.9.1993 for a non-executive post along with eight other candidates. Respondent's name was at serial no.4 in the merit list/panel. The name of Shri Sourav Mukhopadhyay, serving in Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as BHEL) appeared at serial no.1 in the panel, however as he was getting higher pay in BHEL than the post in question, he asked for pay protection. His demand was not acceptable to the appellants, thus, he declined the offer. The post was offered to Shri Mithlesh Kumar, the next candidate in the panel, but he did not turn up to join. The third candidate in panel claimed for upgrading the post which was not acceptable to the company for the reason that the post had been advertised with certain grade and pay-scale and it was not 4 possible for the unit to upgrade the same. On refusal to join by the third candidate, the post was offered to the respondent and he accepted and joined the post without protest in S-6 grade on 17.6.1996 on the terms and conditions incorporated in his appointment letter. The post to which the respondent claimed parity is not equivalent to the post held by him and therefore, the question of pay parity could not arise. The relief sought by the respondent had been of upgradation of post, granting relaxation of eligibility with retrospective effect. Such a relief could not be granted to him. Each plant/unit has to make the recruitment as per the local needs and as per the requirements of the plant. Thus, all the units do not have the same service conditions. A post may be in executive cadre in one unit and may be in non-executive cadre in another unit. Unequals cannot be treated equals. Thus, there was no justification for the Division Bench to allow the appeal filed by the respondent. Pay parity claimed by the respondent could not be given to him as he was holding a non- executive post, while Shri B.V. Prabhakar was holding the post in executive cadre in another unit of the same company. Hence, the appeal deserves to be allowed.

The said representation stood rejected vide order dated 12/14.10.2004 with observation that non-executive post could not be upgraded to the executive cadre as per the policy of the company. More so, there was no enabling provision for grant of relaxation to the eligibility criteria.

In view of the above, the competent authority in the corporate office of the appellant-company is directed to consider the issue ex- peditiously relating to anomaly raised by the respondent herein for fu- ture recruitments.

29. The appeal is allowed. The judgment and order of the Division Bench dated 1.8.2008 which is impugned herein, is hereby set aside and the judgment of the learned Single Judge dated 16.9.2005 is re- stored. In the facts of the case, there shall be no order as to costs.