Supreme Court: A bench comprising of S.A. Bobde and L. Nageswara Rao, JJ. allowed an appeal filed against the judgment of the Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court and directed the State of U.P. to pay minimum of pay scales to the appellants.
The appellants were the daily workers employed in Forest Department in the State of U.P. They filed a writ petition before a Single Judge of the High Court seeking, inter alia, payment of minimum of the pay scales available to their counterparts working on regular posts. The Single Judge granted the relief as prayed for. However, the Division Bench, on an appeal by the State, reversed the judgment of the Single Judge. Aggrieved thereby, the appellants preferred the instant appeal.
The Supreme Court, for adjudication of the matter, referred to its previous decisions including that in State of Punjab v. Jagjit Singh, (2017) 1 SCC 148 and State of U.P. v. Putti Lal, (2006) 9 SCC 337. The Court, following the Jagjit Singh case, observed that “temporary employees are entitled to draw wages at the minimum of the pay scales which are applicable to the regular employees holding the same post.” The Court found itself unable to uphold the judgment of the Division Bench that the appellants were not entitled to be paid the minimum of the pay scales. Resultantly, the appeal was allowed and the State of U.P. was directed to make payments of the minimum of pay scales to the appellants w.e.f. 01-12-2018.[Sabha Shanker Dube v. Divisional Forest Officer,2018 SCC OnLine SC 2440, decided on 14-11-2018]