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1. The petitioners in the eight writ petitions, listed above, are officers of the Rajasthan High Court, holding the posts of "Private Secretaries attached to the Chief Justice and Judges" appointed as such by the Chief Justice of the Court in accordance with the provisions of Article 229 of the Constitution of India and the rules framed thereunder by the Chief Justice. The irony of this litigation is that officers attached as private secretaries to the Chief Justice and Judges of the High Court should find themselves in a situation which led them to file these petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution, seeking justice from the High Court, against the Chief Justice of the Court and the State Government of Rajasthan who, according to the petitioners, have not redressed their legitimate grievance inspite of repeated representations over the years. Their grievance, in short is that inspite of the fact that their duties and responsibilities as private secretaries and judgment writers in the High Court are far more arduous and onerous in nature as compared to the private secretaries to Commissioners and Secretaries to the Government of Rajasthan, the authorities concerned acted in 1973 and thereafter in such a manner as to deprive them of the parity in pay scales, which existed between the two categories of private secretaries from 1950 to 1973. They are, in effect, seeking a writ of mandamus from this Court directing the Chief Justice of the Court and the State Government of Rajasthan to equate them with private secretaries to the Commissioners and Secretaries to the Government of Rajasthan for the purpose of pay scales.

9. The new category of posts, namely, the Selection Grade Stenographers in the Government Secretariat were given the pay-scale of 275-650. No such scale was available in the establishment of the High Court for being given to Personal Assistants-cum-Judgment Writers in the High Court. The High Court seems to have taken up the matter with the State Government to rectify the situation regarding the pay-scab of these officers. It appears that the Chief Justice himself wrote a demi-official letter, dated June 28, 1974, to the Chief Minister drawing the tatter's attention to the fact that the counter parts in other High Courts of the Personal Assistants-cum-Judgment Writers of the Rajasthan High Court were enjoying parity of pay scales with private secretaries in the Government Secretariats of these States; and, therefore, the Chief Justice strongly recommended that the terms and conditions of service of Personal Assistants-cum-Judgment Writers in the RHC should at least be brought at par with the Selection-Grade Stenographers in the Raj. Govt. Secretariat with a special pay of Rs. 100/- par month in view of the fact that their work involved the performance of duties of a much more arduous and strenuous nature than their counter parts in the Raj. Government Secretariat.

14. These lop-sided executive actions and statutory amendments of rules by the State Government during 1973-1978 have not only destroyed the twenty year old parity of pay scales between the Private Secretaries to Commissioners and Secretaries to Government on one side and Private Secretaries to the Chief Justice and Judges of the High Court on the other, they have also created a situation which is extremely frustrating from the stand point of the latter. The petitioners' case is and the learned Advocate General in his written arguments admits it, that the situation as it emerged it) 1983 on the commencement of the Rajasthan Civil Services (Revised Pay Scales) Rules, 1983, is depicted by the comparative table as follows:

33. Moreover, in the cited Aadhra case, there was no history of parity of pay scales between the staff of the High Court and the Staff in the Secretariat. The Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court had made a proposal recommending parity for the first time, and the State Government did not accept the proposal, giving reasons for its refusal before and during the pendency of the writ petition in the High Court. It was on these facts that the Supreme Court did not find any arbitrariness in the refusal of the Andhra Pradesh Government. Their Lordships, even then, observed that one should expect in the fitness of things and in view of the spirit of Article 229 of the Constitution that ordinarily and generally the Government should accord approval to the proposal of the Chief Justice In any case, this authority does not support the contention that the Government may withhold approval in an arbitrary and whimsical manner, as in the instant case.