Employee Can't Claim Continuance Of Benefit Of Advance Increment After His Promotion Or Revision Of Pay: Chhattisgarh HC

A bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Parth Prateem Sahu held thus while hearing a writ appeal filed by Registrar General High Court of Chhattisgarh assailing an order of the Single Judge wherein the writ plea filed by Fanendra Kumar Bisen (presently working as the section Officer in the HC) had been partly allowed.

The case in brief

The petitioner was appointed as Assistant Grade III on January 24, 1992. He received two advance increments after his wife underwent a family planning operation (Tubectomy) on July 29, 1999. This benefit was granted by an order dated August 23, 1999, and continued until December 2004.

Subsequently, on January 19, 2005, the petitioner was promoted to Assistant Grade II with a new pay scale of Rs. 4000-100-6000. However, the advance increments were not carried over, and subsequent pay fixation orders did not include these increments.

The petitioner made a representation on September 18, 2018, seeking the continuation of the advance increments. The representation was rejected by an order dated January 30, 2019. The petitioner then filed a writ petition (WPS No. 3617 of 2019) challenging this rejection.

On June 15, 2024, the Single Judge directed the respondents to re-fix the petitioner's pay, considering the advance increments until October 7, 2015, and to pay any resulting arrears and benefits.

The appellant/respondent No. 3 (Registrar General, High Court) filed the instant appeal challenging the Single Judge's decision.

The contentions

In its appeal, the appellant, represented by Advocate Manoj Paranjpe argued that the Single Judge overlooked the memo issued by the appellant High Court on August 30, 2018, and the letter from the State Government's department dated December 28, 2018, which clarified that the advance increment granted as an incentive would only apply to the existing pay scale and would not continue after pay scale re-fixation.

It was also contended that according to the rules, the advance increments were added to the respondent's basic pay, and subsequent benefits were based on this pay.

It was contended that when the respondent was promoted, the increments, including the advance increments, were already factored into the basic pay; therefore, since his new pay was fixed based on this already-included increment, no further advance increments were due.

It was further submitted that since the rules do not allow advance increments to be continued beyond the existing pay scale, the proposal to continue these increments was disapproved.

Referring to MP High Court's judgment in the case of State of M.P. and others Vs. RK Chaturvedi and another 2006 Advocate Paranjape argued that it has been held in the said case that an employee cannot claim any further benefit of advance increments in the event of his promotion or in the event of payment of higher pay scale and the same ratio will apply in the instant case also.

Against the backdrop of these submissions, the High Court referred to MP High Court's RK Chaturvedi Judgment and placed reliance on para 12 of the Judgment wherein it was observed thus:

“an employee whose pay is revised w.e.f. 1-1-1986 in accordance with Sub-rule (1) of Rule 7 of the M.P. Revision of Pay Rules, 1990 automatically gets the benefit of the advance increments given to him for Family Planning Operations under the Circular dated 29-1- 1979 and once his revised scale of pay is fixed in accordance with the said provisions of Sub-rule (1) of Rule 7 of the M.P. Revision of Pay Rules, 1990, he can not claim any further benefit of advance 10 increments in the event of his promotion or in the event of payment of higher pay-scale”

In light of this observation of the MP High Court, the Division bench (of the Chhattisgarh High Court) noted that once the employee's revised scale of pay is fixed in accordance with the provisions of Sub-rule (1) of Rule 7 of the M.P. Revision of Pay Rules, 1990, he can not claim any further benefit of advance increments in the event of his promotion or in the event of payment of higher pay-scale.

Further, the Court observed that in the instant case, the petitioner was granted two advance increments on August 23, 1999, due to his wife's family planning operation. This benefit continued until December 2004. Upon his promotion to Assistant Grade II on January 19, 2005, his pay was fixed, considering the basic pay that included these advance increments.

Thus, the Court added, the advance increments were already factored into his new pay scale, and hence, there was no question of granting a further advance increment.

In view of this, the Court opined that the Single Judge, while deciding the writ petition, had not considered the aforesaid facts and circumstances of the case and, as such, had committed grave illegality in passing the impugned order, which deserved to be set aside.

Accordingly, the writ appeal was allowed, and the impugned order passed by the Single Judge was set aside.