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Agricultural credit through Cooperatives Labour cooperatives Water conservation works/services, irrigation, micro-irrigation in rural areas undertaken by the Cooperatives.
Animal care/health, disease prevention through Cooperatives;
Rural sanitation/drainage/sewage systems through Cooperatives Agricultural Insurance through cooperatives. From the various functions of NCDC, it is apparent that it is a public Corporation and can also be classified as a departmental undertaking. The applicants who are employed in NCDC as Assistants and Programme Officers as well as on other equivalent posts have filed the present Original Application seeking parity in pay scale with Assistants/Section Officers employed in Central Secretariat Services. The question regarding revision of scale of pay for the Assistants in CSS etc. had been under consideration of the Government in terms of order dated 23.05.1989 passed by Central Administrative Tribunal (PB) New Delhi in OA No. 1538/1987. Thus, Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training) issued OM dated 31.07.1990 prescribing the revised scale of Rs.1640-60-2600-EB-75-2900 for the pre-revised scale of Rs. 425-15-500-EB-15-560-20-700-EB-25-800 for duty posts included in the Assistant Grade of Central Secretariat Service and Grade C Stenographer of Central Secretariat Stenographers Service with effect from 1.1.1986. Said revised pay scales were also made applicable to Assistants and Stenographers in other organizations like- Ministry of External Affairs which are not participating in the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) and Central Secretariat Stenographers Service (CSSS) where the posts are in comparable grades with same classification of pay scale and the method of recruitment through Open Competitive Examination is also the same. Since the NCDC had been following the Central Government scale of pay for its employees, in view of revision of pay of Assistants and Stenographer etc. in CSS, the Board of Management of the Corporation in its fifty sixth meeting held on 21.12.1990, proposed to make the revised pay scale in terms of OM dated 31.07.1990 applicable to the corresponding grade in NCDC. For easy reference the minutes of the meeting of Board of Management of the Corporation recorded at item No. 12 on 21.12.1990 are reproduced below:-

5. While it is difficult, at this stage, to estimate the precise financial implications of the proposed revision of the pay scales for the posts of Assistant/Programme Officer etc., according to the rough estimates, the financial implication is likely to be of the order of Rs.6.6.lakhs per year commencing from 1.1.1986.

6. Managing Director, NCDC, recommends this proposal,. Approval of the Board of Management is solicited to the revised scales of pay to the various grades as proposed above. The aforementioned minutes were sent for approval to all members of Board of Management of the Corporation vide letter dated 14.01.1991 and were approved with the condition that the prior approval of Central Government be obtained before implementation of the decision of revising the pay scales in terms of the minutes.

5. As the decision taken by Corporation for revision of pay scale of Assistants and Programme Officers etc. in Corporation could not be implemented, a Writ Petition No. 3248/1994 was filed before Honble High Court of Delhi wherein following the judgment in C.M.No.7996/1994 in C.W 4462/1994 (B.S.Gopinathan Nair and Ors. Vs. All India Institute of Medical Science and Ors.), the Honble High Court directed for consideration of the case of petitioners in said petition at par with Central Government employees, in the matter of pay scale and giving them the pay scale as admissible to Central Govt. employees i.e. in the pay scaled of Rs. 1640-2900. For easy reference the said order is extracted hereinbelow:-

11. In the case of State of U.P. v. J.P.Chaurasia it was pointed out that whether two posts are equal or should carry the equal pay, depends on several factors. It does not depend just upon either the nature of work or the volume of work done. Primarily, it requires among others, evaluation of duties and responsibilities of the respective posts by the competent authorities constituted for the purpose and courts cannot coordinately substitute themselves in the place of those authorities. The quantity of work may be the same but the quality may be different. That cannot be determined by relying upon averments in affidavits of interested parties. It must be determined by expert bodies like Pay Commission and the Government, who would be the best judges, to evaluate the nature of duty, responsibility and all relevant factors. The same view was reiterated in the case of State of M.P. v. Pramod Bhartiya by a three-Judge Bench of this Court. In the case of Shyam Babu Verma v. union of India a claim for equal pay by a group of Pharmacists was rejected saying that the classification made by a body of experts after full study and analysis of the work, should not be disturbed except for strong reasons which indicate that the classification made was unreasonable. In view of the above legal position, it would not be advisable for us to issue direction to the respondents to grant grade pay of Rs.4600/4800/5400 to Assistant/Programme Officer etc. in NCDC.