Excessive Courtroom quashes Punjab govt notification on fastened month-to-month emoluments throughout probation
Saurabh Malik
Chandigarh, February 22
Greater than seven years after the Punjab authorities got here out with a notification offering fastened month-to-month emoluments to its workers in the course of the probation interval with out grade pay, annual increment or different allowance, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Courtroom has quashed the identical.
The Bench of Justice MS Ramachandra Rao and Justice Sukhvinder Kaur additionally directed the state and different respondents to grant common pay scale to the petitioners, together with all different emoluments, allowances, and so on., from the date of their preliminary appointment. A 3-month deadline was set for paying the arrears.
In its 36-page order, the Bench directed the state and different respondents to rely the interval spent on probation as common providers for figuring out the full size of service beneath the service guidelines. The Bench additionally quashed situations included within the appointment letters issued to petitioners on the idea of the notifications.
The impugned notification dated December 25, 2015, was relevant to all workers – count on members of the Punjab Civil Service (Judicial Department), specialist docs and “everlasting workers having lien in everlasting put up and appointed substantively to a different put up on a time scale of pay”. It had additionally made it clear that interval spent on probation was to not be handled as time spent on the put up.
The notification was challenged in 102 petitions filed by Ajay Kumar Singla and different petitioners. Amongst others, they had been represented by Vikas Chatrath, HC Arora, Sunny Singla, Gagneshwar Walia and Kapil Kakkar.
The Bench additionally made it clear {that a} earlier notification dated January 15, 2015, had already been quashed within the instances of Gurwinder Singh and others and Dr Vishavdeep Singh and others. The ratio or the rationale behind the 2 selections, in its opinion, equally utilized to the matter “since what was contained within the notification January 15, 2015, was launched in a unique kind within the notification dated December 22, 2015”. The Bench added there was no materials change, besides that specialist docs had been added to these granted exemption.
“All of the writ petitions are allowed and the notification dated December 22, 2015, can also be quashed and the profit thereof shall accrue to the petitioners, who’ve challenged it from their date of preliminary appointment as was completed within the case of Gurwinder Singh and others,” the Bench added.
Earlier than parting with the judgment, the Bench left one other notification dated September 5, 2016, open for consideration in an applicable case. The State had, vide the notification, elevated the probation interval from two to 3 years. “Although the notification was challenged in a few of the instances, there was no pleading as to why it ought to be quashed,” the Bench noticed.
What it means
*Petitioner-employees to get common pay scale, together with all different emoluments, allowances and so on. from the preliminary appointment date. The arrears can be paid inside three months
*Probation interval can be counted as common service for figuring out the full size beneath the service guidelines
HC ruling on earlier notification
Coming down closely on the state, the Excessive Courtroom had asserted these had been unconscionable phrases and situations. It was nothing, however exploitation by the state authorities of its topics, who had been hapless and desperately in search of authorities jobs. They had been, nevertheless, given the ‘Hobson’s selection’.