ALL INDIA ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL
EXCISE
GAZETTED
EXECUTIVE OFFICERS
President: Address for communication:
Secretary General:
A. Venkatesh 240, Razapur, Ghaziabad-201001
(U.P.)
Ravi Malik
Vice Presidents: Apurba Roy, P. C. Jha
(East); A. K. Meena, Somnath Chakrabarty (west); Ashish Vajpayee, Ravi Joshi
(North); B. Pavan K. Reddy, M. Jegannathan (South); K.V. Sriniwas, T. J.
Manojuman (Central) Joint Secretaries: Ajay Kumar, R. N. Mahapatra
(East); B. S. Meena, Sanjeev Sahai (West); Harpal Singh, Sanjay Srivastava
(North); M. Nagraju, P. Sravan Kumar (South); Anand Kishore, Ashutosh Nivsarkar
(Central) Office Secretary: C. S. Sharma Treasuer: N. R. Manda Organising
Secretary: Soumen Bhattachariya
(Recognised by G.O.I., Min. of Fin. vide
letter F.No. B. 12017/10/2006-Ad.IV A Dt.21.01.08)
Ref. No. 43/AIB/S/19
Dt. 27.02.19
To,
Sh. Pranab Kumar Das,
Chairman, CBIC,
North Block, New Delhi.
Sub: Implementation of the
Subramanium case.
Sir,
Kindly refer to the various
representations of the Association on the subject matter including the Ref.
No. 330/AIB/S/18 Dt. 13.12.18 and 31/AIB/S/19 Dt. 04.02.19.
2. The Hon’ble CAT of
Allahabad held in OA No. 1318/2018 on 06.12.18 that the pay of the officers is to be fixed in the Grade Pay of Rs. 5400/- with all consequential
benefits with effect from the dates that they had completed four years of
service in the Grade Pay of Rs. 4800/- (i.e., pay scale of the Superintendent)
alongwith the interest at such rates as might be found just and reasonable in
the facts and circumstances of the case.
3. Further, it was also
specifically submitted by the applicants in the para 4.22 of the OA that-
“The applicants have been advised to submit,
most humbly, that, as per the dictum of law, as it stands today, all persons belonging to
the same class are equally entitled to the benefits of a judicial verdict if it relates generally to
that class, irrespective of whether some of the members of that class had been
parties before the court or not. In this view of the matter, once the benefits under the
Subramaniam Judgement have been
extended to some, they were liable to be extended to the present applicants as
well since there is absolutely nothing to distinguish their claim from that of
Sh. M.
Subramaniam, and the
failure to do so on the part of the respondents amounts to subjecting the
present applicants to hostile discrimination in violation of the mandate of law
repeatedly and clearly enunciated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in a catena of cases.”
4. It is also worth to
mention that, vide para 7 of the order, the Hon’ble CAT has pointedly observed that pay
fixation matters like the one it was considering, were all governed by uniform
policies of the Government and, therefore, judgments on such matters, by their
very nature, were always judgments-in-rem and cannot be judgments-in-personam, unless so specified in
the order. This observation of the Hon’ble Tribunal is a clear and telling
negation of the stand taken by the department in the Compliance Order dated
31.10.18 issued for implementing the order of the Madras High Court, wherein it
was stated that it had been decided to implement the same in the case of M.
Subramaniam in personam.
5. Having observed as above,
the Hon’ble CAT has been pleased to order that the respondents would
ensure that the benefits of the judgment referred above are given to all the persons
who are entitled to the same whether they are retired or are in service
and that this exercise is to be completed within a month from the date of
receipt of certified copy of the order.
6. Your kind attention is also invited to the
letter F. No. A-23011/62/2016-Ad.IIA Dt. 06.12.18 of the CBIC seeking
information relating to the expenditure involved in the issue. In this regard,
it is to submit that no Hon’ble Court/CAT has put any condition for the approval of the
expenditure from the Department of Expenditure to implement the issue. So, the verdict is required to be
implemented without seeking the information about the involvement of the Expenditure.
7. Needless also to submit that any verdict
settled at the level of the Hon’ble apex Court is to be treated as the law of the land and is to
be implemented in rem without any discrimination to anybody. It is unfortunate that
only applicants are being given the benefit of the verdict, that’s too only
after being forced to file the contempt petition in the Hon’ble Court. The
result of the discriminatory implementation of the verdict is that even seniors
are forced to get less pay than their juniors. Despite of the Board letter
F.No.A-60011/24/2015-Ad.IIB Dt. 21.06.16 and F.No.C-18012/6/2013-Ad.IIB
Dt.09.05.16 to minimise the court cases in service matters by redressing the
grievances represented by the employees, the officers are forced to file court
cases and contempt petitions on various issues.
8. For Lucknow & Meerut Zones,
it has correctly been decided by the competent authority to implement the
verdict benefitting to all persons irrespective of the fact whether they are
petitioner or not. But contrary to it, the CBIC has issued a letter Dt.
25.02.19 like the letter Dt. 31.10.18 to implement the verdict in respect of
the petitioners only based on the contempt petition for Hyderabad Zone. Such
letters give the mere impression that the concerned authorities intend not to minimise the court
cases as well as the contempt petitions. Perhaps these authorities want to have two
categories in the CBIC in discriminatory manner, one category getting the
benefit of the court verdicts and second getting no benefit of these verdicts.
Needless to submit that the creating categories within equally placed persons
is not permissible by any law or rule.
9. It is also worth to reiterate
that the order given by the Hon’ble CAT of Allahabad is to be implemented in
rem throughout the country without being limited to any particular zone/s
because the verdict is not a zone specific one. Needless to submit also that any contrary
view of the verdict amounts to the contempt of the Hon’ble Tribunal.
10. Your kind attention is also invited to the various verdicts
given by the Hon'ble Supreme
Court for in-rem implementation including the orders Dt. 17.10.14 given in the Civil
Appeal No. 9849 of 2014 in the matter of State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors Vs.
Arvind Kumar Srivastava & Ors as under:
“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
service jurisprudence evolved by this Court from time to time postulates that
all similarly situated persons should be treated similarly. Therefore, the
normal rule would be that merely because other similarly situated persons did
not approach the Court earlier, they are not to be treated differently.”
11. In view of the above, it is requested to
implement the verdict in rem throughout the country with all consequential benefits alongwith
the due interest to officers at an early date giving benefit to all affected officers, whether
petitioners/non-petitioners or serving/retired without seeking the clearance for the expenditure.
Thanking You,
Yours sincerely,
(RAVI
MALIK),
Secretary General.
Copy with the request for
necessary action to:
1. The
Secretary, Department of Revenue, North Block, New Delhi.
2. The Secretary, Department of Expenditure, North Block, New Delhi.
3. The
Secretary, Department
of Personnel and Training, North Block, New Delhi.
