HC Kohima Bench seeks info all pending cases regarding minimum scale of pay in Nagaland

May 15, 2023 47 Views No Comment

Morung Express News
Dimapur | May 15

The Gauhati High Court Kohima Bench has requested the Nagaland Government Additional Advocate (AG) to provide information on the number of pending cases regarding the minimum scale of pay.

The request was made during a hearing of a petition filed by an animal attendant at the Dairy Up-Grading Centre in Peren, who was seeking minimum pay scale based on a Supreme Court decision in State of Punjab & Ors. vs. Jagjit Singh & Ors (reported in 2017 (1) GLT SC 47).

“It appears that there are several other such writ petitions pending adjudication by this Court,” noted the order issued by Justice Nani Tagia on May 11.

During the hearing, the judge asked the Senior Government Advocate about the number of such cases pending adjudication, but as the advocate was unsure, the Bench requested the Additional AG to provide information on the next date fixed.

Once the status is known, all such writ petitions can be disposed of by a common order, the judge said. The matter has been listed for further hearing in three weeks.

Meanwhile, on May 12, hearing the writ petition regularisation of job based on Government of Nagaland Office Memorandum dated March 17, 2015, Justice Tagia referred to the May 11 order and told the counsel of the petitioner that the Additional AG will apprise the Court on similar cases.

Thereafter, a common order will be issued, he said, and assured the petitioner of a ‘positive direction.’

The March 17, 2015 OM is a “Scheme for regularization and absorption of Work-Charged and Casual employees and Revision of Pay/wages.”

The Kohima Bench has regularly upheld the doctrine of ‘equal pay for equal work’ in the recent past.

For instance on March 16, 2022, it directed the Nagaland State Government to pay salaries to a batch of teachers employed under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) in parity with their counterparts, stating that the law is also well-settled that the doctrine of “equal pay for equal work.”

‘Equal pay for equal work’
“Equal pay for equal work is a concept that can be applied when the identity between a group of employees claiming an identical pay scale and another group who have already earned such a pay scale is complete and wholesome,” it ruled.

“Parity can be claimed when the eligibility, mode of selection, nature and quality of work and duties of effort, functional need and responsibilities and status of both the posts are identical,” it elaborated while adding that it depends on the “comparative evaluation of job and equation of posts.”

The Court then relied on the Supreme Court judgment in State of Punjab and Others –vs- Jagjit Singh and Others, which held that an employee engaged in the same work cannot be paid less than another who performs the same duties and responsibilities.

In June 2022, the Kohima Bench disposed of 3 writ petitions and directed State respondents to consider the petitioners’ representation to pay monthly with “scale of pay payable to the employees of the same grade” while in September, it directed the State Government to pay ex-cadre/contingency Dobashis (DBs) “the minimum scale of pay, which is paid to the regular Grade-II DBs employed against the sanction post along with arrears.” There were similar cases over the years.

However, the Apex Court judgement (Jagjit Singh) on October 26, 2016, underscored that the ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’ principle cannot be ‘automatically invoked’ and laid down some conditions.

The onus of proof of parity in the duties and responsibilities of the subject post with the reference post lies on the claimant, and the duties of the two posts should be of equal sensitivity and qualitatively similar.

The mere fact that the subject post is in a different department vis-a-vis the reference post does not have any bearing on the determination of a claim, it stated.

Persons holding the same rank/designation (in different departments), but having dissimilar powers, duties, and responsibilities, can be placed in different scales of pay and cannot claim the benefit, it added.