Jagannath Prasad Singh v. Patna

CORAM: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE MIHIR KUMAR JHA ORAL ORDER 3 08-01-2013 Having heard learned counsel for the parties, this Court is of the considered opinion that though the petitioner will not be entitled for the following relief:- “1(i) For a direction upon the respondents to revise, re- fix and grant consequential monetary benefits to petitioner of 1st and 2nd ACP scale in pay scale of Rs. 5000-8000 and Rs. 5500-9000 respectively which has wrongly been granted him vide memo no. 1231 dated 28.02.07 in pay scale of Rs. 4500- 7000 and Rs. 5000-8000 respectively despite the fact that other similarly situated persons have been granted ACP benefits in aforesaid revised pay scale. Patna High Court CWJC No.13739 of 2012 (3) dt.08-01-2013 2 (ii) Further for a direction to grant Grade Pay to the petitioner along with consequential monetary benefits on completion of 30 years of service which has been granted to similarly situated persons.” inasmuch as, the petitioner has not been able to produce any particular notification constituting the cadre of the post of Revenue Clerk …jktLo fyfid‰ whose promotional post is Head Revenue Clerk …iz/kku jktLo fyfid‰. The scheme of ACP is, however, very clear, relevant portion whereof is quoted hereinbelow:- “3. Scheme: (1) Under this scheme, such regular employees of Group „B’,’C‟ and „D‟ of the State Government, who have not got the benefits of any financial progression during their career, shall be granted first financial progression on the completion of 12 years of service and second financial progression on completion of a further 12 years of service, after a total of 24 years of regular service. EXPLANATION: (i) Financial progression on account of merger of posts of two levels shall be treated as financial progression for the purpose of ACP scheme and this shall be kept in view while considering sanction of benefits under the Scheme. (ii) If the service of any employee is more than 12 years on the date of application of this Scheme, and if he has been sanctioned first financial progression, then the second financial progression shall be sanctioned on completion of 24 years period of service and for this purpose the condition of completion of additional 12 years period after the 1st financial progression shall not Patna High Court CWJC No.13739 of 2012 (3) dt.08-01-2013 3 apply. (2) The financial progression shall be sanctioned to the concerned employee into pay scale of the existing hierarchy prescribed for his cadre and for this purpose, the relevant scales of pay would be the scales of pay sanctioned for various posts vide the Finance Department‟s resolutions Wherever the promotional hierarchy is not defined in the Recruitment/ Service Rules or where the promotional hierarchy consists of less than two regular promotional grades, the two financial progression shall be given under the ACP Scheme in the higher scales of pay as listed in schedule attached to this Rules. EXPLANATION: The revised sanctioned for both the basis grade post of Rs. 1200-1800 and the post of first promotion of Rs.1320-2040 in the unrevised pay scale is the same of Rs. 4000-6000. In this case, the first and second financial progression shall be granted in higher pay scales treating the scale of pay of Rs.4000-6000 as the basic grade.” In order to complete this aspect, it would also be relevant to quote the Schedule referred to hereinabove which reads as follows:- “ Schedule List of pay scales for purposes of ACP Scheme S.No. Pay Scales (Rs.)

7. S1 2550-55-2660-60-3200 S2 2610-60-3150-65-3540 S3 2650-65-3300-70-4000 S4 2750-70-3800-75-4400 S5 3050-75-3950-80-4590 S6 3200-85-4900 S7 4000-100-6000 Patna High Court CWJC No.13739 of 2012 (3) dt.08-01-2013 4

17. S8 4500-125-7000 S9 5000-150-8000 S10 5500-175-9000 S12 6500-200-10500 S14 7500-250-12000 S15 8000-275-13500 S19 10000-325-15200 S21 12000-375-16500 S23 12000-375-18000 S24 14300-400-18300” Once this aspect becomes clear that there is no cadre of the post of jktLo fyfid, the pay-scale upon grant of ACP has to be given as per the schedule of the ACP policy wherein the next pay-scale for the petitioner at present in pay scale of Rs. 4000- 6000 would be Rs. 4500-7000 and Rs. 5000-8000. Therefore the demand of the petitioner of the two A.C.P. pay-scales of Rs. 5000- 8000 and Rs. 5500-9000 respectively does not get support from the ACP policy. There is, however, one more significant aspect which has been raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner by citing an example that for the same post and pay scale as held by the petitioner, in other division, the ACP benefit has been extended in the pay-scale of Rs. 5000-8000 and 5500-9000. Though this aspect of the matter has been also supported with the document by the petitioner in the writ petitions the concerned Executive Engineer Patna High Court CWJC No.13739 of 2012 (3) dt.08-01-2013 5 in his counter affidavit has explained only that in his division i.e. the division in which the petitioner is working, no such benefit has been given. In the considered opinion of this Court, this can hardly be a satisfactory answer, inasmuch as, the post of jktLo fyfid in Water Resources Department is available in all the divisions and thus grant of A.C.P. in some divisions in the pay- scale of ACP of Rs. 5000-8000 and Rs. 5500-9000 will be obviously cause a heart burning to the petitioner and other similarly situated persons who have been granted ACP pay-scale of Rs. 4500-7000 and 5000-8000. The State, however, cannot discriminate in the matter of grant of ACP and if the plea of the learned counsel for the State has to be accepted that in the other division of whose example has been cited by the petitioner have been wrongly given such ACP benefit, the question would be now when it has come to the knowledge of the respondents that such an anomaly has been committed in other division which is creating a heart burning to the petitioner, what steps have been taken to correct such error. Since this aspect of the matter has not been addressed by the deponent of the counter affidavit, an Executive Engineer of a particular division, this Court would feel necessity of issuing a direction for taking a uniform decision at the level of Patna High Court CWJC No.13739 of 2012 (3) dt.08-01-2013 6 the Principal Secretary of the Water Resources Department. This Court would accordingly direct the Principal Secretary of the Water Resources Department to examine the whole issue and take a conscious decision as to whether the post of Revenue Clerk …jktLo fyfid‰ held by the petitioner would be entitled for ACP benefit in the pay-scale of Rs. 5000-8000 and 5500-9000 or Rs. 4500-7000 and 5000-8000/-. In the event, he would find that jktLo fyfid in any of the division of the State has been wrongly given the ACP benefit of Rs. 5000-8000 and 5500-9000, he would issue immediate orders for their being recalled and revised. However, such an exercise will be done after giving a notice and/or opportunity of hearing to the concerned affected persons. This exercise, however, must be completed by the Principal Secretary of the department within a period of three months the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. In order to expedite the matter, this Court would give liberty to the petitioner to file a self contained representation enclosing all those documentary evidences of all those instances in which the Revenue Clerk …jktLo fyfid‰ of the other division have been given higher ACP benefit in comparison to the petitioner. The period of three months would commence from the date of Patna High Court CWJC No.13739 of 2012 (3) dt.08-01-2013 7 filing of the representation by the petitioner along with a copy of this order. With the aforementioned observations and direction, this application is disposed of. (Mihir Kumar Jha, J) Rishi/-