Section 42 in West Bengal Municipal (Employees' Service) Rules, 2010
42. Pay protection
. If an employee while officiating in a higher post draws pay at a rate higher than his senior either due to fixation of his pay in the higher post under the normal regulation, or due to revision of pay scales, the pay of the employee senior to him shall be re-fixed, subject to the approval of the State Government, at the same stage and from the same date his junior draws the higher rate of pay irrespective of whether the lien in the lower post held by the senior employee is terminated at the time of re-fixation of pay, subject to the conditions that both the senior and junior employees should belong to the same cadre and the pay scale of the posts in which they have been promoted are also identical.Note 1 : The benefit of this rule shall not be admissible in case where a senior employee exercises his option to retain un-revised scale of pay, or where the pay drawn by the senior employee in the lower post before promotion to the higher post was also less than that of his junior.Note 2 : As a general rule officiating appointment in vacancies of two months duration or less shall not be made. In order to ensure, however, a certain measure of flexibility in the arrangements that may be necessitated by the imposition of this ban, officiating appointments for short periods as may become unavoidably necessary will hereafter be regulated by the following instructions:-(a)Whenever a vacancy of two months' duration or less occurs consequent on an employee proceeding on leave or on deputation, no officiating appointment shall, as a rule, be made, and one or the other of the following arrangements shall be made for the discharge of the duties of the vacant post(i)If the employee who goes on leave or deputation is one of several in the same grade in the particular organisation his work should be distributed amongst his colleagues of the same grade.(ii)If the employee is at an intermediate level the higher employees shall take work direct from the departing employee's subordinates.(iii)If neither of the above two courses is feasible, the employee immediately below the departing employee and available on the spot should be vested with the requisite powers where the post has any statutory functions or duties attached to it and placed in routine charge of the current duties of the vacant post, without having to accept the full duties or the full responsibilities thereof. No extra remuneration would be admissible to the employee concerned for thus carrying on the current duties of the post.(b)Where, for any special reasons, it is not feasible to adopt any of the methods indicated above, an officiating appointment, which calls upon the employee responsibility of the post, may be made for a period less than two months subject to the prior concurrence of the State Government.
