Constitutional equality in judicial pay fixation permits correction of arbitrary service disparities, but not writ-created posts or postings.

Unequal pay fixation within the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service was found constitutionally vulnerable because a superior service had been placed on the same footing as a lower service, attracting arbitrariness under Articles 14 and 16. The Court accepted judicial correction of that anomaly and treated the revised ordinary and selection scales as requiring alignment with the service hierarchy and the governing Rules. However, writ jurisdiction could not be used to create a new supertime scale or to prescribe postings for named officers, since such matters belonged to the administrative domain and the State's consideration. The decision therefore distinguishes permissible correction of discriminatory pay structures from impermissible judicial creation of service grades.

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Issues: (i) whether the High Court could interfere with the pay fixation of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service on the ground that the ordinary scale had been placed at par with the supertime scale of the Rajasthan Judicial Service; (ii) whether the ordinary and selection scales of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service required revision in view of the admitted superiority of that service over the Rajasthan Judicial Service; and (iii) whether a writ direction could be issued to create and grant a supertime scale of Rs. 7300-7600 to seven officers and to post them at specified stations.

Issue (i): whether the High Court could interfere with the pay fixation of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service on the ground that the ordinary scale had been placed at par with the supertime scale of the Rajasthan Judicial Service.

Analysis: The admitted position was that the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service was a superior service, with greater jurisdiction, powers, duties and responsibilities than the Rajasthan Judicial Service. The Court held that where unequal services are treated alike in the matter of pay, the vice of arbitrariness under Articles 14 and 16 is attracted. The existence of Rules under Article 309 did not bar judicial review where the application of those Rules produced an unjust and unreasonable result. The Court further held that it was not directing the legislature to enact any law, but correcting an arbitrary administrative fixation of scales already existing under the Rules.

Conclusion: The interference with the existing pay fixation was justified and the ordinary scale could be revised to remove the constitutional infirmity.

Issue (ii): whether the ordinary and selection scales of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service required revision in view of the admitted superiority of that service over the Rajasthan Judicial Service.

Analysis: The Court noted that the State itself had accepted that the higher judicial service should not be placed below the highest scale of the judicial service and that the anomaly created after implementation of the revised scales needed rectification. Once the ordinary scale of the higher judicial service was placed in a proper relation with the revised structure, the selection scale also had to follow the next higher existing scale in the Rules. The Court treated this as an application of the principle of equal pay for equal work and as a correction of unequal treatment between two differently placed services.

Conclusion: The ordinary scale of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service was to be granted the revised scale of Rs. 5100-6300 from 1.9.1988, and the selection scale was to be revised to the next higher scale under the Rules, with the indicated effect from the relevant dates.

Issue (iii): whether a writ direction could be issued to create and grant a supertime scale of Rs. 7300-7600 to seven officers and to post them at specified stations.

Analysis: The Court held that this part of the judgment went beyond correction of an existing inequality and amounted to carving out a new scale and prescribing specific postings, which lay outside the permissible scope of Article 226. Questions as to creation of such a supertime grade, the number of officers to be placed in it and their postings were matters for the High Court on the administrative side and for the State Government to consider, not for a writ court to mandate in the first instance.

Conclusion: The direction granting a supertime scale of Rs. 7300-7600 to seven officers and fixing their postings was set aside.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded in part. The Court upheld judicial intervention to remove unconstitutional pay disparity within the service hierarchy, but declined to sustain the writ-based creation of a new supertime scale and specified postings.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a pay structure placed a superior service on the same footing as an inferior service, thereby treating unequals as equals and creating arbitrariness, the High Court could issue corrective directions to enforce constitutional equality; but it could not, in writ jurisdiction, create a new pay scale or prescribe administrative postings not already provided by the governing Rules.

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