Director Bureau of Outreach and Communication v. Chitra Sharma

1. This petition has been filed, challenging the Order dated 19.11.2019 passed by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Tribunal’), in O.A. No. 3153/2016, titled Chitra Sharma and Ors. v. Union of India & Ors., allowing the said O.A. filed by the respondents herein, with the following direction-

ensured that the highest of the grade pay for any post of SA shall be less than the grade pay of the lowest of the post in the category of POs. There shall be no order as to costs.”

2. At the outset, we would note that by an application, that is, CM APPL. 71262/2024, the petitioner has sought to place on record certain additional facts in respect of respondent no. 14.

3. The learned counsel for the respondents submits that she does not wish to file any response to this application and, in fact, does not dispute that the respondent no. 14 was initially appointed as an Actor on 16.04.1999; was declared as a Staff Artist vide letter dated 16.10.1995; and thereafter, promoted to the post of Drama Producer with effect from 09.02.2010. She submits that, therefore, the respondent no. 14 would be entitled to the benefit of the Judgement.

4. We will not make any comment on the benefit of the Judgement to a particular respondent.

5. Accordingly, the said application stands disposed of by taking the above facts on record.

6. As far as the Impugned Order is concerned, the learned Tribunal has observed that for the post of Staff Artist, the Grade Pay was Rs.2400/- and for a higher group in that category, it was Rs.4200/-, while for the post of Programme Officer, the starting Grade Pay was Rs. 4600, and thereafter, there were four promotional avenues with different grade pays, the highest being Rs.6600/-. It is stated that two of them have since been abolished.

7. The Director of S&DD of the Ministry had submitted a proposal to the Supreme Court wherein four tier structure of SA was indicated with a grade pay ranging from Rs.4200/- to Rs.6600/-. The same was accepted by the Supreme Court, resulting in issuance of the Order dated 12.10.2015, providing for restructuring of the cadre of Staff Artist from 1996 onwards.

8. The respondents approached the learned Tribunal contending therein that the Staff Artist is, in fact, a post lower in stature as compared to the Programme Officer and, therefore, the Order dated 12.10.2015 has resulted in an anomaly, inasmuch as, the cadre which earlier had a higher pay scale and the officers working there were in fact the reporting officers for the Staff Artist, were now drawing a lesser pay.

9. The learned Tribunal accepted the above submissions, observing as under.

ultimately the matter reached the Hon'ble Supreme Court. At the stage of implementation, the Ministry was required to maintain a balance between the two categories. Once highest of the grade pay in SA is less than the lowest of the grade pay for the post of POs, the same ratio or level play was required to be maintained.

10. Through the impugned order, the respondents created a four tier structure for the respective categories and four separate grade pays were created in the SA. While grade pay for the post in entry grade i.e. grade - IV is at Rs. 4200/the one at grade - I was stipulated as Rs. 6600/-. It is not necessary for us to take note of every sub category within the same category. The grade pay of Rs. 6600/ for the post within the category of SA becomes higher than by Rs. 2000/-. This was never contemplated in the recommendation of V CPC. The reason for this anomaly is fairly stated by the respondents in their additional counter affidavit. In para- 3 it is stated as under:-