Central Administrative Tribunal - Delhi
The vs Uoi & Others Disposed Of Vide Order Dated ... on 20 March, 2013
Central Administrative Tribunal Principal Bench, New Delhi O.A.No.976/2013 M.A.No.754/2013 Wednesday, this the 20th day of March 2013 Honble Shri A.K. Bhardwaj, Member (J) O R D E R (ORAL) MA-754/2013 For the reasons stated therein, MA filed under Rule 4 (5) of CAT (Procedure) Rules, 1987 is allowed.
OA-976/2013 The applicants, 68 in numbers, have filed the joint O.A. praying therein:
8.1 To set aside office order dated 05.01.2012 (Annexure A/1); and or 8.2 may pass an appropriate order directing the respondents to grant the retiral and other service and pensionary benefits to the applicants as has been passed by this Honble Tribunal in O.A. No.564/2011; Chander Mani Atwal & Others Vs UOI & Others disposed of vide order dated 16.02.2012 wherein it has been held that the decision in the writ petition before High Court, Chandigarh will hold the field. Honble High Court, Chandigarh vide order dated 08.02.2012 affirmed the order dated 04.02.2011 passed by the Coordinate Bench at Chandigarh, which has also been duly uphold and affirmed by the Honble Supreme Court vide order dated 08.11.2012 and duly complied with by the Respondent No.2 vide office order dated 20.11.2012 in consultation with Respondent No.1 extending the benefit of pension to 130 employees of Respondent No.1 8.3 To extent the applicants the benefit of orders and judgments passed by the judicial fora and office orders of the Respondents extending retiral and Pensionary benefits to the similarly situated employees of NYKS, thereby granting parity.
8.4 Any other relief which this Honble Tribunal may deem fit and appropriate, in the circumstances of the case.
2. It is noticed that some of the applicants and also the Adhoc Committee for Pension Rights made representations to the various authorities, including the Director General, NYKS requesting for issuance of appropriate order in continuation of Office Order dated 26.2.2009 issued by the Director General in compliance of the judgment of the Honble Supreme Court in Civil Appeal Nos.7356/2000 and 7357/2000 decided on 12.7.2007. The said representations placed on record as Annexure A-18 collectively are yet to be decided by the respondents.
3. In terms of Section 20 (1) of Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, this Tribunal should not ordinarily admit an application unless it is satisfied that the applicants had availed of all the remedies available to them under the relevant service rules as to redressal of grievances. Thus, when it is obligatory for an employee covered under Rule 14 of aforesaid Act and notifications issued thereunder to comply with Section 20 (1) of the Act before approaching this Tribunal, it is also incumbent upon the authority competent to take decision in the representations made to it to decide the representations of such employees expeditiously.
4. Learned counsel for applicants has relied upon the decision of the Full Bench of this Tribunal in Thulasi B & others v. Union of India & others (O.A.No.172/2010) decided on 18.1.2012 wherein it has been viewed as under:-
11. As regards merit of the matter, it is seen from Annexure A-3 and Annexure A-4 judgments as well as Chandigarh Bench judgment that the employees of the Nehru Yuva Kendra are treated at par with other Central Government employees. The two judgments have been fully complied with by issue of orders vide Annexure A-5 and Annexure A-6. It is a settled law that the decision of the Coordinate Bench unless defers, has to be respected and adopted. In this regard the decision by the Apex Court in the case of Sub-Inspector Rooplal v. Lt. Governor, (2000) 1 SCC 644, is relevant to be cited wherein the Apex Court has held as under :-
"12. At the outset, we must express our serious dissatisfaction in regard to the manner in which a Coordinate Bench of the Tribunal has overruled, in effect, an earlier judgment of another Coordinate Bench of the same Tribunal. This is opposed to all principles of judicial discipline. If at all, the subsequent Bench of the Tribunal was of the opinion that the earlier view taken by the Coordinate Bench of the same Tribunal was incorrect, it ought to have referred the matter to a larger Bench so that the difference of opinion between the two Coordinate Benches on the same point could have been avoided. It is not as if the latter Bench was unaware of the judgment of the earlier Bench but knowingly it proceeded to disagree with the said judgment against all known rules of precedents. Precedents which enunciate rules of law form the foundation of administration of justice under our system. This is a fundamental principle which every presiding officer of a judicial forum ought to know, for consistency in interpretation of law alone can lead to public confidence in our judicial system. This Court has laid down time and again that precedent law must be followed by all concerned; deviation from the same should be only on a procedure known to law. A subordinate court is bound by the enunciation of law made by the superior courts. A Coordinate Bench of a Court cannot pronounce judgment contrary to declaration of law made by another Bench. It can only refer it to a larger Bench if it disagrees with the earlier pronouncement. This Court in the case of Tribhovandas Purshottamdas Thakkar v. Ratilal Motilal Patel while dealing with a case in which a Judge of the High Court had failed to follow the earlier judgment of a larger Bench of the same Court observed thus :
The judgment of the Full Bench of the Gujarat High Court was binding upon Raju, J. If the learned Judge was of the view that the decision of Bhagwati, J., in Pinjare Karimbhai case and of Macleod, C.J., in Haridas case did not lay down the correct law or rule of practice, it was open to him to recommend to the Chief Justice that the question be considered by a larger Bench. Judicial decorum, propriety and discipline required that he should not ignore it. Our system of administration of justice aims at certainty in the law and that can be achieved only if Judges do not ignore decisions by courts of coordinate authority or of superior authority. Gajendragadkar, C.J., observed in Bhagwan v. Ram Chand :
'It is hardly necessary to emphasise that considerations of judicial propriety and decorum require that if a learned Single Judge hearing a matter is inclined to take the view that the earlier decisions of the High Court, whether of a Division Bench or of a Single Judge, need to be reconsidered, he should not embark upon that inquiry sitting as a Single Judge, but should refer the matter to a Division Bench, or, in a proper case, place the relevant papers before the Chief Justice to enable him to constitute a larger Bench to examine the question. That is the proper and traditional way to deal with such matters and it is founded on healthy principles of judicial decorum and propriety'."
12. The judgments which have been implemented cannot be considered to be a judgment in personam as identical employees cannot be treated differently. If the department means that for deriving the benefits as available to the applicant in other O.A, other individuals should move the Court, such a view is not supported by any authority. Rather, the The Apex Court as early as in 1975 in the case of Amrit Lal Berry v. CCE, (1975) 4 SCC 714, held as under : -
"We may, however, observe that when a citizen aggrieved by the action of a government department has approached the Court and obtained a declaration of law in his favour, others, in like circumstances, should be able to rely on the sense of responsibility of the department concerned and to expect that they will be given the benefit of this declaration without the need to take their grievances to court."
13. The V Central Pay Commission in its recommendation, in regard to extension of benefit of court judgment to similarly situated, held as under :-
"126.5 Extending judicial decisions in matters of a general nature to all similarly placed employees. We have observed that frequently, in cases of service litigation involving many similarly placed employees, the benefit of judgment is only extended to those employees who had agitated the matter before the Tribunal/Court. This generates a lot of needless litigation. It also runs contrary to the judgment given by the Full Bench of Central Administrative Tribunal, Bangalore in the case of C.S. Elias Ahmed and others v. UOI & others (O.A. Nos. 451 and 541 of 1991), wherein it was held that the entire class of employees who are similarly situated are required to be given the benefit of the decision whether or not they were parties to the original writ. Incidentally, this principle has been upheld by the Supreme Court in this case as well as in numerous other judgments like G.C. Ghosh v. UOI, [ (1992) 19 ATC 94 (SC) ], dated 20-7-1998; K.I. Shepherd v. UOI [(JT 1987 (3) SC 600)]; Abid Hussain v. UOI [(JT 1987 (1) SC 147], etc. Accordingly, we recommend that decisions taken in one specific case either by the judiciary or the Government should be applied to all other identical cases without forcing the other employees to approach the court of law for an identical remedy or relief. We clarify that this decision will apply only in cases where a principle or common issue of general nature applicable to a group or category of Government employees is concerned and not to matters relating to a specific grievance or anomaly of an individual employee."
14. In a latter case of Uttaranchal Forest Rangers' Assn. (Direct Recruit) v. State of U.P.,(2006) 10 SCC 346, the Apex Court has referred to the decision in the case of State of Karnataka vs C Lalitha (2006) 2 SCC 747 as under :-
"29. Service jurisprudence evolved by this Court from time to time postulates that all persons similarly situated should be treated similarly. Only because one person has approached the court that would not mean that persons similarly situated should be treated differently."
15. Taking into account of the above facts it can be safely said that the applicants are entitled to all the service benefits as available to the counter parts in the Central Government Departments. As a matter of fact it has to be held that this judgment should be treated as judgment in rem so that the benefits as available to the applicants in this O.A are extended to identically situated other employees of the respondents without any need for them to knock at the doors of the Court for claiming such benefits.
16. Counsel for the respondents, at the time of hearing, made a submission that in so far as pensionary benefits are concerned as there is a change inasmuch as with effect from 1.1.2004 those who are recruited to the service are entitled to contributory pension scheme only and not for any pensionary benefits under CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972, the applicants may be considered for such benefits available to post 1.1.2004 recruits. The contentions of the counsel for the respondents cannot hold good as the regularization of the applicants had taken place much earlier to 1.1.2004 as could be seen from Annexure A-1order of regularization. As such, as regards pensionary benefits all the applicants and similarly situated individuals are entitled to pensionary benefits under CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972. We reiterate here that this order is passed keeping in view the provisions of Rule 24 of the C.A.T (Procedure) Rules which include that power to make such orders (to secure ends of justice) treating this judgment as judgment in rem in consonance with para 126.5 of the 5th Pay Commission extracted above.
5. He has also made reference to the order passed by the Chandigarh Bench of this Tribunal in Parshotam Lal & others v. Union of India & others (OA-675/PB/2009 with connected cases) decided on 4.2.2011 wherein it has been held thus:
In another case of Satbir Singh vs. State of Haryana, 2002 (2) SCT page 354, the Honble High Court has held that when a judgment attains finality, the State is bound to grant relief to its employees who are similarly situated even though they are not party to the litigation. A final decision of the Court must not only be respected but should also be enforced and implemented evenly and without discrimination in respect of all the employees who are entitled to the benefit which has been allowed to the employees who have obtained orders from the Court. The matter is one of principle and should not depend upon who comes to the court and who does not.
In Dr. (Mrs.) Santosh Kumari vs. Union of India & others- 1994 (7) SC 565, Honble Supreme Court lamented that a more deserving candidate may not have the means to approach the Court, should he be denied the benefit which has been granted to those who dared the department with court orders.
Since the respondents have granted relief to some of the employees, pursuant to an order of the Kerala High Court, which has attained finality, having been implemented and not challenged before the superior court, the action of the respondents to deny the same relief to the similarly situated persons is per se illegal, arbitrary and in defiance of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. The same cannot, therefore, be sustained in the eyes of law. Further, the judgment/order in that case cannot also be said to be in personam, as claimed by the respondents, but the same has to be treated in rein and must be complied with in respect of all similarly situated persons.
Since respondents No. 13 & 14 are also working in the same department, where such benefits have been granted to other category of employees, they cannot certainly be treated differently not deprived of services and other retiral benefits, which have been extended to similarly situated other Group D employees.
In view of the above, OA No.675/PB/2009 is allowed and the applicants are held entitled to the benefit of the order dated 22.7.2009 as at Annexure A-6 as per rules and the same be extended to them by passing a speaking order within a period of 3 months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. Further, this order applies mutatis mutandis to the rest of the 5 other cases also.
All the 6 OAs stand disposed of in the above terms. No costs. The said order was upheld right upto the Honble Supreme Court.
6. In the circumstances, the O.A. is disposed of with direction to the respondents to examine and decide the representations (Annexure A-18 collectively) as expeditiously as possible preferably within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. While doing so, they would keep in view the aforementioned orders passed by this Tribunal. The decision so taken shall be communicated to the applicants by way of a speaking order. No costs.
( A.K. Bhardwaj ) Member (J) /sunil/ Shri Devender Kumar (Youth Coordinator) & others ..Applicants (By Advocate: Shri A K Behera) Versus Union of India & another ..Respondents