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Judgment
Delivered by Hon’ble Mr. Anjani Nandan Sharan, Member (A)
Heard Shri B.D. Tiwari, learned counsel for the applicants and Shri ChaKrapani Vatsyayan, learned counsel for the respondents.
The applicants have filed this Original Application under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, seeking following main relief(s):-
“(i)That the Hon'ble Tribunal may kindly be pleased to quash the impugned order dated 28.02.2003 (AN No-1) and command or direct the respondents to grant the arrears of upgraded Pay Scales to the applicants for the period from 01.01.1996 to. 18.02.2003 in accordance with the Judgement and order of the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi dated 18.12.2019 (AN No-3) Hon'ble Apex Court order dated 08.01.2021 (An No-4), Hon'ble CAT (P.B.) New Delhi order dated 21.03.2023 (AN No-5) and Hon'ble CAT Chandigarh order dated 17.09.2025 (AN No-6).
(ii)To pass any other and further order or direction, which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper under the circumstances of the present case.
(iii)To award interest @9% Per annum on the amount of Arrears of upgraded pay for the period 01.01.1996 to 18.02.2003 for which respondents are responsible for causing delay in payment and financial hardship to Poor Senior Citizen Ex-employees.”
The brief facts of the case, as reflected in the Original Application, are that the applicant nos.1 to 5 retired from service upon attaining the age of superannuation as Auditors, Senior Auditor, SO(A) Assistant A.O. and other higher promotional posts in the Defence Accounts Department. Under the Fifth Central Pay Commission, they were given revised pay scales from 01.01.1996. In 2003, the Government further upgraded these pay scales, but granted the actual financial benefit only from 19.02.2003, while giving the revision notionally from 01.01.1996.
The applicants requested payment of the arrears for the period from 01.01.1996 to 18.02.2003, but their representations were rejected. Several courts and Tribunals, including the Delhi High Court, Central Administrative Tribunal, and the Supreme Court, subsequently held that similarly placed employees were entitled to the upgraded pay scales and arrears from 01.01.1996. These decisions have attained finality, including the Supreme Court's dismissal of the Government's SLP in January 2025.
The CAT Chandigarh also granted similar relief to Defence Accounts Department employees, directing payment of arrears for the same period. Further, the CAT Allahabad in January 2026 granted the same benefit to similarly placed applicants.
The present applicants claim that they are similarly situated employees/pensioners of the Defence Accounts Department and should, therefore, receive the same benefit, irrespective of whether they were parties to the earlier cases. They contend that denial of the arrears is arbitrary, discriminatory and contrary to Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, and has caused them financial loss.
The Government refused to grant employees of the organised audit and accounts departments the benefit of upgraded pay scales from 01.01.1996. As a result, employees and their associations approached different courts and Tribunals. The Delhi High Court, CAT Principal Bench, and the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled in favour of the employees and directed the Government to grant upgraded pay scales from 01.01.1996 with arrears and applicable interest. The Government filed several appeals and Special Leave Petitions, but all were dismissed. Despite these judgments, the respondents denied the same benefit to the present applicants on the ground that they were not parties in the earlier cases. The applicants contend that they are similarly placed employees and are legally entitled to the same benefits. They further state that the Government's action is arbitrary, discriminatory, unfair, and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. The applicants claim that they are entitled to actual pay and arrears from 01.01.1996 to 18.02.2003 in view of the Supreme Court judgment and constitutional principles of equality. As per the applicants payment of upgraded revised pay scales w.e.f. 01.01.1996 has already reached finality and denial of the benefit to the applicants who are similarly placed is illegal and not justified.
Learned counsel for the respondents submits that the benefits directed in judicial pronouncements are applicable for the applicants of those cases only in accordance with the directions issued by the competent authority. The question whether such benefit is to be extended to all similarly placed employees across all establishments is an administrative and policy matter requiring decision at the level of the concerned ministry.
Submissions of both the parties have been heard and records have been gone through.
The grievance of the applicants is that the Government of India had granted upgraded pay scales to the organized Accounts Departments of the Central Government i.e. Railway Accounts, Postal Accounts, Defence Accounts and Audit Department etc. for which only notional benefits were allowed with effect from 01.01.1996 and actual benefits were granted with effect from 19.02.2003.
The learned counsel for the applicants relies upon the judgment of Hon’ble High Court of Delhi dated 18.12.2019 in W.P.(c) 1523/2016 in the case of All India Railway Accounts Staff Association and Others Vs. Union of India and Ors, which reads as under:-
“1.The All India Railway Accounts Staff Association and 23 other individual employees of the Railways have filed this petition challenging an order dated 15th September, 2015 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Principal Bench in O.A. No. 4419/2014 filed by them against the Union of India, the Railway Board, the Financial Commissioner (Railways), the Deputy Director (Pay Commission-V), the FA and CAO, South Eastern Railways, and the FA and CAO, Metro Railway, Kolkata. The Petitioners also challenge an order dated 11th December, 2015 passed by the CAT dismissing their R.A. No. 303/2015.
2.The short question before the CAT concerned the date of adoption of the recommendation of the 5th Pay Commission for upward revision of the pay scales of the Accounts cadre. Aggrieved by the decision of the Government to grant the revised pay scale "notionally from 1st January, 1996 and effectively from 19th February, 2003" communicated by a Railway Board order dated 7th March, 2003, the applications aforementioned were filed before the CAT.
3.The case of the Petitioners herein has been that the revised pay and allowances should be granted from 1st January, 1996 itself. The CAT has by the impugned order held that even though the 5th CPC recommendations were made effective from 1st January 1996, it did not automatically mean that all monetary benefits pursuant thereto were to be given from that date, and that this was "purely a matter for the Government to decide based on several factors including the financial burden to the exchequer, which in this case has been pointed out to be a huge burden." In doing so, the Tribunal referred to the decision of the Supreme Court dated 27th August, 2007 in C.A. Nos. 2468-69/2005 (Union of India v. Arun Jyoti Kundu).
13.The following passage in Arun Jyoti Kundu (supra) makes it clear that the context there was different:
"14.Once we find that it was open to the Government to extend a benefit to a set of its employees with effect from a particular day on the basis of some anomaly found in the report of the fifth Pay Commission, there would arise no discrimination because the very implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission Report would not entitle the respondents to any benefit. The very right to their benefit arose because of the decision of the Government to extent to them a particular benefit not specified in the Fifth Pay Commission Report, It is, therefore, not possible to postulate that the decision of the Government must be given retrospective effect and if no such effect is given, the tribunal or court can interfere and direct the giving of such retrospective effect Once it is found that paragraph 83.296 is attracted to the case, it has to be found that the applicants before the Tribunal were not entitled to any relief".
14.A careful reading of the passage shows that the question in the above case was giving retrospective effect to a benefit "not specified in the 5th pay commission report." That is not the case here. The Court is, therefore, of the view that the decision in Arun Jyoti Kundu (supra) was in a different context and cannot come to the assistance of learned counsel for the Railways in the present case.
20.Thus, the proposal of the Ministry of Railways itself was for grant of the relief retrospectively from 1" January, 1996. The proposal was then sent to the Department of Personnel and Training ('DoPT'). It appears that at the stage of consideration of the Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, it was decided to limit the actual effective implementation of the revised pay scale by granting it from 19th February, 2003. The Court has perused the minutes of the meeting of the Cabinet which took the above decision on 19th February, 2003. There is no indication why the effective date of implementation was postponed except on the ground of financial burden to the Railways.
21.Between Accounts cadre employees, to deny some of them the benefit of the revised pay scale from 1st January, 1996, and to grant the others the same relief would result in discrimination between equally placed employees. This is not contemplated or permissible in law. It cannot possibly be a policy of the Railways that its employees in the Accounts cadre in different zones get the benefit of the revised pay scales from different dates.
22.For all of the aforementioned reasons, the Court finds the impugned orders of the CAT dated 15th September, 2015 and 11th December, 2015 to be unsustainable in law. They are accordingly set aside.
23.The prayers in the present petition are allowed and a direction is issued to the Respondents to grant them the revised pay scale in question from 1" January, 1996 when the recommendations of the 5th CPC became operational. The order dated 7th March, 2003 of the Railway Board, to the extent that it limits the actual benefit of the revised pay scale by granting the same from 2nd February, 2003, and not from 1st January, 1996, is hereby set aside.
24.The arrears now be granted to each of the Petitioners within 12 weeks failing which the Respondents will be liable to pay simple interest at 6% per annum thereon till the date of payment. The petition is disposed of in the above terms.”
The aforesaid judgment in the case of All India Railway Accounts Staff Association and Ors. Vs. Union of India and Ors was affirmed by the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Union of India and Ors. Vs. All India Railway Accounts Staff Association & Ors. in Special Leave to Appeal (C) No.13818/2020 with SLP (C) No.14549/2020, SLP (C) No.14829/2020, SLP (C) No.15226/2020 & SLP (C) No.14966/2020 which reds as under:-
“In the facts and circumstances of the present cases, we are not inclined to entertain these special leave petitions. The special leave petitions are dismissed. We, however, leave the question of law open. Pending application(s), if any, stands disposed of.”
It is noted that the applicants are similarly placed employees of the Defence Accounts Department. The Railway Accounts staff members were granted actual monetary benefits with effect from 01.01.1996 pursuant to the judgments passed by the Hon’ble Delhi High Court in All India Railway Accounts Staff Association’s case, which was also upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.
It is a fact that the decision to upgrade the pay scales was based on the recommendations of the 5th Pay Commission’s report, which was implemented with effect from 01.01.1996. However, the Office Memorandum (OM) regarding the pay scales for Auditor/Accountant, Sr. Auditor/Sr. Accountant, Asstt. Audit Officer/Asstt. Account Officer was issued on 28.02.2003 allowing actual payments with effect from 19.02.2003, although up-gradation was done notionally with effect from 01.01.1996.
Since the counterparts of the applicants in the Railway Accounts and other departments have received the actual benefits of upgraded pay scales effective from 01.01.1996, the applicants, in this case, are also entitled to the same treatment. The judicial pronouncements in similar cases affirm the applicants' entitlement for enhancement of their pay scales from 01.01.1996, given the fact that the underlying rationale for the pay revision stems from the recommendations of the 5th Pay Commission, which became effective from that date.
In light of the foregoing analysis and the principles of service jurisprudence articulated by the Hon'ble Supreme Court and various Benches of the Central Administrative Tribunal as well as the recommendation of the Special Anomaly Committee, it is evident that the denial of retrospective application of the revised pay scales for the applicants, who are similarly situated to officers in other departments, constitutes a violation of the principle of equality and fair treatment under Article 14 of the Constitution of India. Various judicial pronouncements emphasize the necessity for uniform application of benefits across similarly situated employees, mitigating the inequity that arises when distinct treatments are applied arbitrarily.
In identical cases of officials of Defence Accounts Department, similar orders have been passed by this Tribunal.
Accordingly, the Original Application is allowed. The respondents are directed to grant the revised pay scales for Audits/Senior Auditors, Section Officers and Assistant Accounts Officers to the applicants with effect from 01.01.1996 along with all consequential benefits, including payment of arrears of salary and other emoluments from that date up to 18.02.2003 with applicable interest. The respondents shall complete the necessary implementation within a period of three months from the date of this order. No order as to costs.
Interim Order, if any, stands discharged. All pending M.As, if any, shall be treated as disposed of.