High Court Pulls Haryana Govt For Giving ₹1 Hike After Direction To Revise Pay Scale, Says Officers Who Pass Such Orders Must Be Hauled Up

The Punjab & Haryana High Court took a stern stand on Haryana Government's action to only give 1 Rupee hike in pay scale of Executive Engineer following High Court's direction to revise the salary, observing that the revised salary is "non-functional" and "patently illegal."

Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Meenakshi I. Mehta said, "We find that the action of the State authorities is committing mockery of the Court's orders, and certain officers who pass such orders deserve to be hauled up. We deprecate the practice adopted by the officers in making lip service to the Court's orders."

These observations were made while hearing the Letter Patents Appeal filed by Haryana Government against a single judge's decision to revise pay scale for the post of Executive Engineers.

A petition was filed by the Haryana Federation of Engineers, Hisar, in 2012 seeking directions to fix pay scale of executive engineer one step higher as compared to that of the assistant engineer, and pay scale of superintending engineer one step higher as compared to that of the executive engineer with effect from 1989.

The single judge had opined that the Executive Engineer and Superintending Engineers would have to be assigned next higher standard pay scale in service sfter the pay scale of Rs.4100-5300 as they were the next promotional posts with effect from 01.05.1989 to 31.12.1995.

It has also directed to release all consequential benefits including arrears of salary/revised pay scales to members of petitioner association, who were working on those posts during the period, within six weeks from receiving a certified copy of the judgment.

However, the Court found that the order passed by Single Judge, was not implemented as per the intent of the judgment and only Re.1 enhancement was given in the revised "non-functional" pay scale for the post of Executive Engineer

The bench also noted the "unexplained" delay of 229 days in filing the appeal.

 In the light of the above, the plea was dismissed.

Shruti Jain Goyal, Sr. DAG, Haryana.

Title: STATE OF HARYANA AND ANOTHER v. V N GROVER AND OTHERS

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (PH) 36

Click here to read/download the order