Benefit Of Revised Pay Scale Can’t Be Denied On Account of Some Technicality: Supreme Court
The Apex Court was considering an appeal against the judgment of the Meghalaya High Court dismissing the contempt petition filed by the appellant.
The Supreme Court granted relief to an employee, who was promoted to the post of Draughtsman in 1983, and held that he cannot be denied the benefit of a revised pay scale on account of some technicality.
The Apex Court was considering an appeal against the judgment of the Meghalaya High Court dismissing the contempt petition filed by the appellant.
The Division Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai & Justice Augustine George Masih asserted, “It is apparent that both the orders suffered from typographical errors.”
Senior Advocate R. Shamshad represented the Appellant while ASG Brijender Chahar represented the Respondent.
Factual Background
The appellant joined the services with the respondents in 1981 as a Rifleman/Nursing Assistant having the rank of Sepoy and he was promoted to the post of Draughtsman in 1983. The respondent came up with a policy document in 1984, which specified that the candidates were required to have the same qualifications as the Draughtsman of Central Public Works Department to be entitled for a revised pay scale. However, by further amendment of the said policy, the requirement of the requisite qualification was changed to minimum experience in the cadre.
Since the appellant was not granted the said benefit as per the amendment, the appellant approached the Gauhati High Court. The said petition came to be allowed with the observation that once the appellant had completed four years of service, he was entitled to revise pay scale with effect from the date on which he completed the four years of service. However, the Court observed that the appellant had completed four years of service in the year 1997. Since there was an obvious error, the appellant filed a Review Petition which was allowed. In the said order, the Court observed that the year mentioned in the order is to be read as ‘1997’ instead of ‘1987’.
The order allowing the writ petition was challenged by the respondent(s) in an appeal before the Division Bench and the same was dismissed. The special leave petition challenging the same was also dismissed. Alleging non-compliance of the direction issued by the High Court, the appellant filed a contempt petition but the same was dismissed by way of the impugned order. Hence, the appellant approached the Apex Court.
Reasoning
The Bench was of the view that the High Court was justified in dismissing the contempt petition, since in a technical sense, there was no contempt committed by the respondent(s). The High Court, in the first order though noted that the appellant was initially appointed in 1983 and he would be entitled to the revised pay scale mentioned in the policy of 1994, erroneously, observed that the period of four years was completed in 1997.
It was further noticed that for correcting the said order, a review petition was filed before the High Court but the Court again passed the order with the same mistake. Though it was observed that the period of four years was to be completed in the year 1987, the order mistakenly stated the year as ‘1997’.
Noting that the earlier orders suffered from typographical errors, the Bench said, “The appellant, who was otherwise entitled to the revised pay-scale from 1987, cannot be denied the same on account of some technicality.”
Thus, partly allowing the Appeal, the Bench directed the respondent(s) to revise the pay scale of the appellant from August 19, 1987. “The arrears shall be paid to the appellant along with an interest of 6 per cent within a period of three months…”, it concluded.
Cause Title: Dharamvir Singh v. Shri Rajiv Mehrishi and Others [Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 224]
Appearance:
Appellant: Senior Advocate R. Shamshad, Advocates Savita Devi, Shashank Singh, Arijit Sarkar, Gaurav Gupta, Zeb Hasan, AOR Akshay Verma
Respondent: ASG Brijender Chahar, Advocates Rajeshwari Shankar, Vimla Sinha, Nachiketa Joshi, Vaishali Verma, Sanjay Kumar Tyagi, AOR Arvind Kumar Sharma
