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M.P. Poorva Kshetra Vidyut Vitaran Co. Ltd. & Ors. v. Uma Shankar Dwivedi

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 789Decided 5 Sept 2018
Civil Appeal Nos. 9146-9148 of 2018
Justice Kurian Joseph · Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul

Background

The respondent was an employee absorbed into the appellant electricity distribution company from a Rural Electrification Cooperative Society (the "Rewa Society"). A notification dated 27.04.2006 excluded employees from societies where the pre-revised pay scales had not been applied, such as Rewa Society employees, from the 2001 pay revision benefits otherwise given under the Fifth Pay Commission. The respondent contended, and it was not disputed, that despite this exclusion the company had in practice extended the 2001 pay revision benefit to employees of other similarly excluded societies, creating a question of unequal treatment among similarly situated absorbed employees.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court granted leave and clarified the position rather than deciding a fresh dispute on the facts: if the appellant company had, in practice, extended the 2001 pay revision benefit to employees of other societies despite the Notification's exclusion, then the respondent's own Rewa Society employees could not be discriminated against and must receive the same benefit. On the separate question of the Sixth and Seventh Pay Commission benefits, the Court held there was no dispute that these had to be extended to the REC Society employees from the same date they were given to the company's own employees, with any resulting arrears paid within three months. The impugned High Court/Tribunal orders were clarified to this extent and the appeals were disposed of, with no order as to costs.

Lesson Learnt

An employer cannot selectively apply an exclusion clause to deny pay-revision parity to one group of absorbed employees while extending the same benefit to other similarly situated groups: equal treatment among similarly placed absorbed employees will be enforced even through a clarificatory order rather than a full-blown adjudication.

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

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