Source Of Promotion No Grounds To Deny Benefits To Employee Similarly Situated With Other Employees Upon Regularization: Patna High Court

The Patna High Court on Tuesday (Sep.3) observed that a source of promotion cannot be a factor in discriminating amongst the employees who were promoted to a new cadre or regularized in the service.

“At the outset, it is trite that when an employee is promoted to a new cadre or regularized in the services; there cannot be any discrimination on the basis of the source from which the promotion was conducted or the regularization was made, especially when, in the promoted post or the regular post the employee continues with the very same responsibilities, obligations and duties as a person who was promoted or appointed from another source.”, the Court said.

Affirming the decision of the Single Bench, the bench comprising Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice Partha Sarthy observed that if an employee is promoted to a higher scale/new cadre then he cannot be denied the equal benefits being given to other similarly situated employees in the same grade just because the employee was promoted from another source not equivalent from the source from which other employees were promoted.

In the present case, the State Government had preferred a Letters Patent Appeal against the Single Judge decision to grant regularization benefits to the respondent/writ petitioner after being regularized from the position of Electrician in work charged position.

The State contended that the writ petitioner/respondent upon being promoted to the new cadre was entitled to receive the same pay received by him while working in the work-charged position.

Rejecting the state's argument, the judgment authored by Chief Justice Chandran observed as follows:

“We find absolutely no reason to accept the argument of the learned Government Advocate that he was entitled to only the pay in the work charged establishment. We do not find the same to be a condition in either Annexure-A or B and even otherwise we have found that when a person is appointed to a particular cadre, the source from which he was taken cannot be a reason to discriminate him from the other employees continuing in the very same cadre, who also have similar responsibilities and identical obligations.”

“Again this would not indicate; that on conversion, the work charged employees would be treated differently from the employees of the regular establishment. If that were the case, only those persons who could be adjusted in the post available in the regular establishment would get the higher pay scale; but the others who are allowed to continue in identical posts, which post will also stand abolished at the time of their retirement or severance from employment; would be treated differently from others; clearly making a case of discrimination.”, the Court added.

Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed.

Appearance :

For the Appellant/s : Mr. Ajit Kumar GA-9 Mr. Vikash Jha A.C. To G.A.9

For the Respondent/s : Mr.Satish Kumar Sinha, Advocate

Case Title: The State of Bihar & Ors. Versus Hirdayanand Tiwari, Letters Patent Appeal No.257 of 2022

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Pat) 69

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