TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2014 (10) TMI 947
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....if they were similarly situated as those persons who have been granted relief in the petitions filed by them. Respondents, on the other hand, contend that once it is found that both sets of persons are identically placed, the impugned orders granting them the same benefit are in tune with the constitutional mandate enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution of India. 4) Such a situation has not occurred for the first time in the present appeal. There are many decisions of this Court. If outcome alone of those judgments is seen, one would find that in some cases the Courts have extended the benefit to the similarly situated persons, whereas, in some other cases similar benefit is denied to the second set of people who approached the Court subsequently. However, on delving deep into the rationale and reasoning of these two sets of cases, one is able to mentally rexognise the logic behind different outcomes. Under what circumstances such a benefit can be extended and what are the reasons for denying the same, shall be discerned after taking note of those judgments. But, before undertaking that exercise, it would be apt to take note of the facts of this case in order to understand an....
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....passed by the Tribunal. The Special Leave Petition filed by the State met the same fate as that was also dismissed by this Court on August 12, 1994. In this manner, the Tribunal's order dated August 16, 1991 attained finality and the persons who had approached the Tribunal got the appointments. 8) The respondents herein waited all this while, that is till the dismissal of the Special Leave Petition in the year 1994. It is only thereafter, in the year 1995, the respondents gave a representation for giving appointments to them as well on the strength of the judgment of the Tribunal given in the case of other persons, claiming parity. This representation was rejected vide order dated June 06, 1995 by the Chief Medical Officer. Against this rejection the respondents approached the Tribunal by filing Claim Petition No. 96/1996. As mentioned above, the said petition was allowed by the Tribunal on the ground that they were in the same position in which the other successful candidates were given relief and as such these respondents were also be entitled to the same relief. The High Court has affirmed the order of the Tribunal. 9) The moot question which requires determination is as t....
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....the line of these cases, referred to by the learned counsel for the respondents is the judgment in Inder Pal Yadav & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. (1985) 2 SCC 648. That was a case where the services of casual labour employed on railway projects continuously for more than a year were terminated on the ground that the projects where these casual labour were working had been wound up. Challenging their termination, writ petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution of India were filed in this Court. During the pendency of these petitions, Railway Administration framed scheme for their absorption as temporary workmen on completion of 360 days of continuous employment. This scheme was made applicable to those who were in service as on January 01, 1984. In view of this development, writ petitions were set out for hearing to examine the fairness and justness of the Scheme, particularly, on the issue as to whether choice of date of January 01, 1984 was arbitrary or discriminatory. The Court was not enthused by fixation of January 01, 1984 as the cut off date on the ground that it was likely to introduce an invidious distinction between similarly situated persons and expose some workmen t....
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....inistration itself which framed the Scheme for their absorption. In such circumstances, the question of fixing the rationality of cut off date in the said Scheme arose for consideration and the Court was of the view that while implementing the Scheme, those whose services were terminated before January 01, 1984, they would be discriminated against. Thus, while giving the direction to implement the scheme which was framed by the Railway Administration itself, the Court gave the direction to start absorbing those with longest service, which is clear from the reading of para 6 of the said judgment, and we reproduce the same hereunder: "6. To avoid violation of Article 14, the scientific and equitable way of implementing the scheme is for the Railway Administration to prepare, a list of project casual labour with reference to each division of each railway and then start absorbing those with the longest service. If in the process any adjustments are necessary, the same must be done. In giving this direction, we are considerably influenced by the statutory recognition of a principle well known in industrial jurisprudence that the men with longest service shall have priority over those ....
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....l in its judgment dated 16-12-1993 in Oas No. 395-403 of 1993 and connected matters. No order as to costs." Immediate comment which is called for by us to the aforesaid judgment is that there is no detailed discussion in the said order. What can be observed from the reading of this order is that the earlier judgment of the Tribunal striking down the Notification dated December 05, 1988 was treated as judgment in rem. Naturally, when the Notification itself is struck down and it was a matter of pension, benefit thereof was to be given to the others as well. It appears that for this reason the Constitution Bench observed that delay should have been condoned giving relief to the appellants also in the same terms as was granted by the Full Bench of the Tribunal. 13) In State of Karnataka & Ors. v. C. Lalitha (2006) 2 SCC 747, which is the next case relied upon by the learned counsel for the respondents, our attention was drawn to the following passage from the said judgment: "29. Service jurisprudence evolved by this Court from time to time postulates that all persons similarly situated should be treated similarly. Only because one person has approached the court that would not mea....
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....ary post and for the purpose of seniority, she had to be placed below the last candidate appointed in the year 1976 and was not entitled to any back wages. It is clear from these directions that her appeal was allowed giving same directions as given in N.T. Devin Katti (supra). It so happened that though her name was in the first list, which was upheld in N.T. Devin Katti's case (supra), her rank was little below and there were few persons above her. As per her rank in the general merit Category I posts, after taking the opinion of the Public Service Commission, it was decided by the Government to consider her for the post of Assistant Controller of Accounts , a Category I Post, as the marks secured by her were below the marks secured by the candidates selected as Assistant Controller of Accounts. She refused to accept the said post and approached the Tribunal again. The Tribunal dismissed the OA filed by her. Against that order of the Tribunal she approached the Karnataka High Court, which allowed the writ petition directing the State to implement order dated March 15, 1994 which was passed by this Court in the earlier round. Against this order of the High Court, the State pre....
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....he writ petition in the year 1987, which was disposed of on September 13, 1991 and a direction was issued to the Director General of Police to consider their cases for appointment to the post of PSI by relaxing of rules. Pursuant to the said directions, the Director General of Police considered and rejected the cases of the appellants for appointment without giving any reasons. These appellants initially filed the contempt petition, but thereafter preferred fresh writ petition being Writ Petition No. 3735 of 1997. This writ petition of the appellants was pending when the orders of appointment came to be passed in the writ petition filed by Abdul Rashid Rather and on the basis of that judgment, Abdul Rashid Rather had been given the appointment with effect from April 01, 1987. In this scenario, when writ petition of the appellants came up for hearing before the Single Judge of the High Court, it was allowed vide judgment dated April 30, 2001 following the judgment in the case of Abdul Rashid Rather, which had been affirmed by this Court as well. However, the State filed appeal thereagainst and this appeal was allowed by the Division Bench of the High Court. Even the review petition ....
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....al only in the year 1996, i.e. after a period of 9 years from the date of passing of the orders. He drew our attention to the following observations in M/s. Rup Diamonds & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. (1989) 2 SCC 356: "8. Apart altogether from the merits of the grounds for rejection - on which it cannot be aid that the mere rejection of the special leave petitions in the cases of M/s Ripal Kumar & Co., and M/s. H. Patel & Co., could, by itself, be construed as the imprematur of this Court on the correctness of the decisions sought to be appealed against - there is one more ground which basically sets the present case apart. Petitioner are re-agitating claims which they had not pursued for several years. Petitioners were not vigilant but were content to be dormant and chose to sit on the fence till somebody else's case came to be decided. Their case cannot be considered on the analogy of one where a law had been declared unconstitutional and void by a court, so as to enable persons to recover monies paid under the compulsion of a law later so declared void. There is also an unexplained, inordinate delay in preferring this writ petition which is brought after almost an year a....
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....recovery was made in the year 1984-86. Some persons in similar cases challenged the recovery before the Administrative Tribunal which allowed their Applications in August 1989. On coming to know of the said decision, the respondents filed Applications in August 1989 before the Tribunal with an application to condone the delay. The Tribunal condoned the delay and allowed the OAs. Appeal against the said order was allowed by this Court holding that there was unexplained delay in approaching the Tribunal. The Court relied upon the Constitution Bench case in S.S. Rathore v. State of M.P. (1989) 4 SCC 582, which deals with the manner in which limitation is to be counted while approaching the Administrate Tribunal under the Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985. Here again, on the ground of delay, the Court refused to extend the benefit of judgment passed in respect of other similarly situated employees. 20) Both these judgments, along with some other judgments, were take note of in U.P. Jal Nigam & Anr. v. Jaswant Singh & Anr. (2006) 11 SCC 464. That was a case where the issue pertained to entitlement of the employees of U.P. Jal Nigam to continue in service up to the age of 60 years. In ....
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....ot be extended to any other person. The respondent C.K. Dharagupta (since retired) is seeking benefit of Joshi case. In view of our finding that the benefit of the judgment of the Tribunal dated 17-3-1987 could only be given to Joshi and nobody else, even Dharagupta is not entitled to any relief." 11. In Govt. of W.B. v. Tarun K. Roy, (1997) 3 SCC 395, their Lordships considered delay as serious factor and have not granted relief. Therein it was observed as follows: (SCC pp. 359-60, para 34) "34. The respondents furthermore are not even entitled to any relief on the ground of gross delay and laches on their part in filing the writ petition. The first two writ petitions were filed in the year 1976 wherein the respondents herein approached the High Court in 1992. In between 1976 and 1992 not only two writ petitions had been decided, but one way or the other, even the matter had been considered by this Court in State of W.B. v. Debdas Kumar, 1991 Supp (1) SCC 138. The plea of delay, which Mr. Krishnamani states, should be a ground for denying the relief to the other persons similarly situated would operate against the respondents. Furthermore, the other employees not being before ....
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.... case, if the respondents would have challenged their retirement being violative of the provisions of the Act, perhaps the Nigam could have taken appropriate steps to raise funds so as to meet the liability but by not asserting their rights the respondents have allowed time to pass and after a lapse of couple of years, they have filed writ petitions claiming the benefit for two years. That will definitely require the Nigam to raise funds which is going to have serious financial repercussions on the financial management of the Nigam. Why should the court come to the rescue of such persons when they themselves are guilty of waiver and acquiescence?" 23) The legal principles which emerge from the reading of the aforesaid judgments, cited both by the appellants as well as the respondents, can be summed up as under: (1) Normal rule is that when a particular set of employees is given relief by the Court, all other identically situated persons need to be treated alike by extending that benefit. Not doing so would amount to discrimination and would be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. This principle needs to be applied in service matters more emphatically as the serv....