Parity between Assistant, SO of Ordnance Factory and CSS/CSSS Pay Scale:
Landmark Judgement by HC citing "Equal pay for Equal Work". Text of
Hindustan Times News reproduced below:-
New pay scale benefits for ordnance staff too: HC
UNIFORMITY Citing ‘equal pay for equal work’ principle, Delhi High Court
tells Centre to grant pay parity to ordnance factory employees
Employees at Ordnance Factories (OF) – who have been contesting their
omission from the benefits of the sixth pay commission for over seven
years have finally more than one reason to rejoice.
Reining in the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ at public
offices, the Delhi High Court has directed the Centre to grant pay
parity to employees in the OF with that of identically ranked official
in the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) and Central Secretariat
Stenographer’s Service (CSSS).
The direction will be applied retrospectively from 2006 — when the sixth
CPC was implemented. Not only this, the HC order will come in handy for
the employees of the OF when the seventh central pay commission is
implemented.
The HC order came in response to a petition filed by Ordnance Factory
Employees Association challenging the decision of the finance ministry
declining their request for the assistants working in the OF Board to be
given same pay scale as was given to similarly placed officials in CSS,
CSSS, Ar my Headquarters, UPSC and other services.
The starting point of discrimination against the employees of the OF
Board came soon before the acceptance of recommendation of the sixth CPC
when a pay upgradation of employees of CSS and CSSS was made in
September 2006.
While the OFs and Armed Forces Head Quarters (AFHQs) — both
non-secretariat organization — were excluded from the pay upgradation,
the latter took the matter to the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT)
and got an order in its favour.
In the case of OF Board, the central government took the view that since
it was a nonattached office working outside the Secretariat, there
cannot be parity of pay scales. The OF Board was denied benefit of
upgradation and the replacement scales given by the sixth CPC. The CAT,
too, took a similar stand and denied any relief to the OF Board.
The matter finally reached the Delhi HC last year and after over a year
of deliberation a bench of Justice S Ravindra Bhat and Justice Vipin
Sanghi termed the discrimination meted out to the OF Board as
“over-classification.”
The HC said the discrimination was illogical and artificial. It also
took note that the cadre structure of CSS and CSSS is identical to that
of the OF. In all the above organisations, the cadre of upper divisional
clerks (UDCs) is filled by the feeder of the cadre of the lower
divisional clerks (LDCs).
The cadre of assistants on the OF Board is filled by promotion from the
feeder cadre of UDCs with at least five years of experience on regular
basis.
“The OF Board was treated historically as equals to CSS/CSSS employees
and enjoyed equal pay and all benefits flowing from equal pay,” the high
court noted adding, “This was based on the previous four instances of
determinations by successive pay commissions that they performed equal
work.”
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