INJUSTICE FOR HIGH COURT STRANGE BUT TRUE, HIGH COURT EMPLOYEES = LOWER PAY LOWER COURT EMPLOYEES = HIGHER PAY

Firoz.T.Totanawala

The Bangalore Metro Reporter

15th July 2011 issue-

                                    

                                INJUSTICE FOR HIGH COURT

STRANGE BUT TRUE, HIGH COURT EMPLOYEES = LOWER PAY

LOWER COURT EMPLOYEES = HIGHER PAY

Karnataka Judiciary is witnessing a strange phenomenon of the High Court employees getting lesser salary and perks than the employees of Lower Courts. Apparently, the employees and officials in High Court are highly discriminated when compared to their counterparts in Lower Court and Central Administrative Tribunal. And interestingly, this unique situation exists only in Karnataka.

Check the pay scales of some cadres of High Court and Lower Court employees. The Chief Administrative Officer/Assistant Registrar in the Lower courts enjoys the pay scale of 14050-25050. While their counterparts in High Court, that is, Court Officer/ Section Officer/ Sr. Judgment Writer in the High Court get the pay scale of 11400-21600! Taking into consideration the DA, HRA etc, the Lower Court official get about Rs.4600 more than the High Court official. This is just an example of the vast difference in pay scales of employees of High Court and Lower Court who are equivalent in cadre. Needless to say that High Court is the highest court in a State and just below the Supreme Court, where as the Lower Courts and the CAT comes under the High Court.

When we compare the pay scale with the Administrative Tribunals, the difference is more pronounced. A Registrar in the CAT receives the pay scale of Rs. 14300-18300, while a similar post in High Court gets the pay scale of Rs. 12600-16720. Similarly, a Deputy Registrar in CAT gets the pay scale of Rs. 10000-15200, while, the similar cadre official in High Court receives only Rs. 7400-13120! When this is the case with Group A and B officials, one can only imagine the differences in other cadres. A peon in the CAT gets a minimum of Rs.12850 as gross salary, and the same post in the High Court fetches a gross salary of Rs. 8660 only.

True, the High Court employees are making demands for pay parity with the Central Government employees for the last so many years. But they have not been successful due to the apathy of the State Government. In fact, the High Court employees come under the control of the Chief Justice, who has to take action regarding their service conditions and pay structures. Accordingly, the Article 229 of the constitution which deals with the appointment of officers and servants of the High Court, gives full powers to the Chief Justice (CJ) to decide the service conditions, salary etc. of such officials. It is his prerogative. But, the only rider is in respect of salary, leave, pension etc, which needs the State Government’s approval.

In fact, the Supreme Court in its landmark judgment on Article 229(2) has clearly laid down that when the rules relating to salaries, allowances, pensions, leave etc, are framed by the CJI, the precedent then should be looked upon with respect because the same have been framed by a high signatory of the country. The State can not refuse approval unless there are good reasons to do so. Even if the state wants to disapprove the rules, it can not straight away refuse to grant such an approval without some exchange of thoughts between the state and the Chief Justice. But, shockingly for Karnataka, the State Government has failed to provide parity of pay scales to HC employees in spite of CJ’s recommendations.

Arguably, the successive CJs tried for pay scale equality but, for no outcome as yet. The then Chief Justice Bhaskar Rao in the year 2000 had taken up the issue seriously. He was of the opinion that the HC employees deserve better pay and wanted at least the pay scales of the HC employees on par with the HC employees in Delhi or Kerala. However, he stopped short of taking a decision and left it to his successor as he was to demit the office as CJ in Karnataka.

Then, for the next four years, there was no development until Justice N. K. Jain, the then CJ evinced keen interest in this regard. On 06.10.2004, Justice N. K. Jain addressed a letter to the then Chief Minister Dharam Singh highlighting the plight of HC employees and the discrimination in respect of pay scales. The CJ had made out a strong case for giving Central Government employees pay scales to the High Court employees.

In his letter, the CJ had explained in detail the work culture, work load etc, of the High Court employees and how different and difficult they are compared to the CAT employees. He had asked the then CM Dharam Singh to consider giving HC employees parity with Central Government pay scales, but, nothing came into effect. The CJ had also sent the letter to the then Governor TN Chaturvedi, but, for no outcome. In fact, the Government referred the matter to the Finance department where it started gathering dust.

After having exhausting all means, the HC employees have now resorted to Writ Petition in the HC for redressal of their grievances. The HC has also disposed the Writ Petitions on the pretext that a committee of judges has been formed to understand the problem and recommend suitable action in this regard. But this is not the solution as the CJ has already recommended central pay scales to the HC employees. The only thing left is the approval of the State Government to the recommendations of the CJ, which is not a big task.  If the CJ writes a strong letter to the CM in this regard drawing his attention to the recommendations of the CJ in 2004, one can be sure of the CM approving the recommendations in a matter of few days, thus ending the decade old discrimination.

It may not be out of place here to mention that the B.S.Yeddyurappa Government is highly afraid of the High Court. When the CJ took the Government to task for not providing residences to the judges, the Government went to the extent of emergency acquisition of lands in UAS, Hebbal and the quarters for Judges are almost ready and they can occupy their bungalows by August 15th. Such is the hurry the Government had shown towards welfare of the judges. And it can very well show the same enthusiasm towards HC employees. The sooner, the better.