Bijay Kumar Sharma & Ors. v. Ranchi University & Ors.
Background
In 1981 the Bihar government sanctioned a merger of pay scales for Upper Division and Lower Division Assistants/Clerks, but only for posts that had two linked junior and senior scales. In 1990, the Principal of Ranchi Women's College (affiliated to Ranchi University) issued an order fixing higher, merged pay scales for several staff, including the appellants, who held posts like Typist, Counter Clerk, Routine Clerk and Store Keeper, expressly subject to the University's approval. The University later refused to approve this re-designation in 1995, reversing the benefit, and the appellants challenged that reversal; a Single Judge of the Patna High Court ruled in their favour in 2003, but a Division Bench reversed that ruling in 2010, holding the Principal had no power to grant the merged scale without the Vice Chancellor's sanction.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court upheld the Division Bench, finding that the appellants' posts (Typist, Counter Clerk, Routine Clerk, Store Keeper) did not fall within the categories of Lower/Upper Division Assistants/Clerks for which the 1981 merger order applied, and that only the Vice Chancellor, not the College Principal, had authority to re-designate posts or grant revised pay scales under the Bihar State Universities Act. Since the Principal's 1990 order itself stated the benefit was conditional on University approval, and that approval was never granted, there was no vested right to the merged pay scale. However, invoking its Article 142 power (and following precedents like Shyam Babu Verma and Rafiq Masih), the Court held that the appellants, some of whom had already retired, should not be made to refund the extra pay they had drawn in good faith between 1990 and 1995 due to the authorities' own five-year delay in deciding the matter.
Lesson Learnt
A pay benefit granted on a conditional or provisional basis by an authority lacking final sanctioning power can be lawfully withdrawn once the competent authority disapproves it, but the Supreme Court will often protect employees from having to refund money already paid in good faith when the delay in resolving the matter was not their fault.