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Dr. P.N. Shukla and Others vs. Union of India and Others

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 1048Decided 30 Nov 2023
Civil Appeal No. 7747 of 2012
Hima Kohli · Rajesh Bindal

Background

The appellants and one Respondent No. 4 were all recruited as "Research Assistants" (later "Assistant Scientific Officers") in the Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology (CSTT) under the same 1980 recruitment rules, performing essentially the same duties in different subjects. After his pay-upgrade requests were repeatedly rejected, Respondent No. 4 went on deputation three times to other government bodies, each time drawing a higher pay scale, before returning to CSTT. Shortly after his return, the government granted him a much higher pay scale (with a Non-Practising Allowance normally reserved for doctors) retroactive to his date of joining, by wrongly relying on Pay Commission recommendations meant for doctors in the Indian Systems of Medicine, even though he was not practising medicine. When the appellants sought the same pay scale as their similarly-placed colleague, their claim was rejected on the ground that his post had since been separately declared an "ex-cadre" post: a step taken only after the anomaly of a single officer's pay being upgraded was noticed.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court traced the entire chronology and found a pattern of deliberate, engineered favouritism toward Respondent No. 4, from the initial wrongful pay upgrade based on inapplicable recommendations, to later cover-up steps (declaring his post ex-cadre, redesignating it, and eventually notifying separate 2014 recruitment rules just for his post) that were never properly grounded in any rule amendment. The Court held that since the initial higher pay-scale grant to Respondent No. 4 was itself illegal, the appellants could not claim equal treatment based on an illegal benefit, and it set aside the Tribunal's and High Court's orders as well as the underlying rejection of the appellants' representations: the appeal was allowed. Because the wrongful benefit to Respondent No. 4 was not a bona fide error but a "well-planned and deliberate infraction," the Court directed recovery of the amount illegally paid to him, holding him and the officials responsible for the decision jointly and equally liable to reimburse the government exchequer.

Lesson Learnt

The constitutional principle of "equal pay for equal work" cannot be used to extend an illegal benefit to more people. If one employee's favourable treatment was itself unlawful, others cannot claim parity with it; and public officials who engineer such benefits, along with the beneficiary, can be held personally liable to repay the public exchequer.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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