Time-bound higher pay scale requires prescribed qualification and eligibility; ineligible promotees cannot claim it on service length alone.

Employees who lacked the prescribed qualification for promotion could not claim a time-bound higher pay scale merely by completing the required length of service. The Supreme Court confined the benefit under the 1990 order to directly recruited Assistant Engineers and to promotees who were statutorily treated as direct recruits because they met the qualification and were promoted against the reserved quota. The legal fiction in the note to the order was held to be limited, and the object of preventing stagnation did not create a blanket entitlement for ineligible promotees. The Board's rejection of the claim was upheld, with Articles 14 and 16 used to reinforce that unequals cannot be treated alike.

---

---

Issues: Whether employees of the Board who had not acquired the requisite qualification for promotion could claim the benefit of the time-bound higher pay scale under the Board's order and circulars merely on completion of the prescribed length of service.

Analysis: The benefit under the 1990 order was held to be confined to directly recruited Assistant Engineers and to those promotees who were statutorily deemed to be direct recruits because they had the prescribed qualification and were promoted against the reserved quota under the relevant regulations. The legal fiction created by the note appended to the order was treated as limited and could not be extended to all promotees irrespective of qualification. The Court also held that the object of removing stagnation did not create a blanket entitlement to higher scale in the absence of the essential qualification for the higher post. Articles 14 and 16 were relied upon to explain why unequals could not be treated alike.

Conclusion: The respondent was not entitled to the higher pay scale, and the Board's rejection of the claim was upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: A time-bound promotional benefit linked to service length must be confined to employees who satisfy the prescribed qualification and the specific eligibility conditions in the governing regulations and order; it cannot be claimed by ineligible promotees merely on the ground of completed service.

---