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Showing contexts for: Redesigned post in Chandraprakash Madhavrao Dadwa & Ors. vs Union Of India & Others on 25 September, 1998Matching Fragments
13. On the other hand, learned senior counsel for the appellants, Mrs. Shyamala Pappu, submitted in reply to the above arguments that the order dated 16.3.1998 was equally invalid. The appellants were doing data processing work although and not data entry work since the time they were recruited as Data Processing Assistants. They satisfied whatever essential qualifications were then fixed for that post at that time of their recruitment. The latest order is illegal inasmuch as it continues the shifting of the appellants from the Data Processing stream to the Data Entry stream and it continues the redesignation of the appellants as Data Entry Operators Grade IV. The impugned order amounts to removing the appellants from the posts to which they were recruited and in which they were confirmed in 1989. As the revised scale of Data Entry Operators Grade IV i.e. Rs. 1350-2200 is less than the revised scale of Rs. 1600-2660 applicable to Data Processing Assistants there is a clear violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. Similar down-gradation was done in the case of the erstwhile Data Processing Supervisors when they were redesignated as Data Processing Assistants in a lower scale of Rs. 1600-2660 and the same was struck down by this Court in Civil Appeal No. 16741 of 1995. The principle of that case should be applied to the case of the appellants. The impugned orders dated 2.7.1990 and 16.3.1998 created a vacuum in the posts of Data Processing Assistant, particularly after the judgment of this Court in Civil Appeal No. 16741 of 1995 dated 9.12.1996, which was never intended under the Rules. The order of 16.3.1998 is worse than the order dated 2.7.1990 inasmuch as now the appellants will have to start from Grade IV in scale of Rs. 1350-2200 and move to Grade III in scale of Rs. 1400-2300 and only then to the scale of Rs. 1600-2660 given to Grade II Data Entry OperatOrs. They could never be redesignated as Data Processing Assistant because that post is now placed in a different stream.
"further recommended that the demand of the Association for redesignation of the posts DEO Grade B and DPA as DPA Grade A and DPA Grade B may however be reviewed by the DOs."
38. The Vth Pay Commission, therefore, required the designation to be reviewed. The Counter affidavit unfortunately lays more stress on the 'status quo' part of this recommendation rather than the recommendation regarding fresh "review" of designation. If this advice was heeded and proper review done, the order dated 16.3.98 would not, in our opinion, have been passed.
42. It is, however, important to note that para 9(c) stated that the "redesignation of EDP posts will also be subject to the judgment to be delivered by the Supreme Court in the (Review Petition No. 2096 of 1995 in SLP (C) No. 16646 of 1995) filed by C.M. Dadwa & others (presently DEO Grade B)".
43. That the respondents had some reservations about what they had done in the matter of redesignation and fixation of revised scales in the NSSO is evident from para 15 of the counter affidavit of the Union of India filed on 6.7.1997 in the review petition. It was stated there as follows:
(9) We have shown while referring to the orders dated 2.7.90 and 16.3.98 above that there was non-application of mind by the authorities to several important factual and legal aspects when the redesignation procedure was adopted suddenly. We reiterate those reasons.
(10) We may also mention at this stage the stand taken by the respondents in the counter affidavit filed on behalf of the Union of India by Shri R. Ravi, working as Under Secretary in the Ministry of Planning. Department of Satistics. In the said affidavit, at page 66 of Volume 1 in these review proceedings, the Deponent in paragraph 7.1 has observed that "the Government of India after considering the Seshagiri Committee Report prescribed the pay scales for EDP posts in the various Ministries and rationalised their pay structure. Accordingly, vide order dated 2.7.1990, this Department (NSSO) redesignated the posts and notified the change as follows: