32-year legal battle of 116 litigants comes to an end

Srinagar, Nov 29: A petition before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in Srinagar came to an end after 32 long years, and the petitioners have already superannuated, and some of them have passed away.

The court attributed the delay of the 1993 case to “official lethargy”, observing that “Justice delayed is justice denied” is a powerful maxim that emphasises the concept of timely justice, but not holding good every time.

As many as 116 petitioners in 1993 had approached the High Court of J&K with a plea seeking to declare them as entitled to the grant of the benefit of the revised higher pay scale of Rs 1400-Rs 2500 from the date of passing of the ITI certificate course by them.

In the face of the struggle for justice, only 24 petitioners were left now.

Senior Advocate M I Qadri, counsel for the petitioners, submitted that they had been working in the executive cadre of subordinate services of Maintenance and Rural Electrification Wing (EM&RE) of Power Development Department (PDD), who, at the relevant point of time, were working in various electric divisions.

He said that in view of the fact that the department failed to release the benefit of pay, as laid down in SRO 149 of 1973, in favour of the semi-skilled workers, as such, the petitioners, being aggrieved, submitted a memorandum of demands, whereby they requested for release of the benefit under the law.

The counsel said that consequent upon the filing of the memorandum and due deliberations by the authorities vide a communication dated April 25, 1990, approval was accorded for extension of the benefit of the SRO 149 to the Semi-Skilled Employees of the PDD, who were ITI trained and had matriculation qualification.

“As such, they were allowed the revised grade of Rs 1400-Rs 2600 instead of the pre-revised grade of Rs 1150-Rs 2050,” he said.

He argued that the contesting petitioners have since superannuated and have received their pensionary and related benefits and are drawing their monthly pension as well.

Even some of the petitioners have already reunited with their creator, and it is their respective families who are now getting the family pension, he said.

The counsel submitted that since the pension and other benefits had already been accorded to the petitioners in terms of SRO 149 of 1973 for the past decade, as such, what survived in this petition now was that the government should not make any recoveries from their pension.

“The instant petition is disposed of by providing that the respondents are restrained from making any recoveries of the benefits, which the petitioners have been granted in terms of SRO 149 of 1973 and also in terms of order of the High Court of J&K, Srinagar, dated October 21, 1994,” a bench of M S Latif, Member Judicial, and Prasant Kumar, Member Administrative, said.

The tribunal’s direction came after it noted that “even otherwise, at this stage, in terms of law laid down by the apex court, no recoveries can be made.”

The tribunal held that not only does the law favour the petitioners at this stage, as the authorities never challenged the order passed by the High Court of J&K on October 21, 1984, but also that direction was issued to give the petitioners the benefit of SRO 149 of 1973 and a compliance report was sought to be filed within three months.

“The High Court’s order has since attained finality,” it said.

The tribunal observed that before parting with its duty would not be complete if a word of caution was not sent to the J&K’s Law Secretary, as he is the Nodal Officer and HOD of the Law Department, that “a case has come to an end after thirty-two years and the orders on the file would speak for themselves”.

“We are sure that the Law Secretary will bother to go through the orders passed by the High Court of J&K, Srinagar, from time to time. We would appreciate, if this case were a novel case for him and other authorities to ponder upon, and this may serve as a corrective,” the bench said.

In terms of the order dated June 28, 1994, the High Court observed that even though a final opportunity was given to the respondents on September 8, 1993, they failed to file their response.

As such, the petition was admitted to hearing on the said date and fresh notices were ordered to be issued.

Since then, several orders were passed by the High Court first and the CAT subsequently, when the case landed there on its transfer from the High Court in the year 2022.

On one occasion, the court observed that the inaction on behalf of the government depicted official lethargy of the concerned.