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The question of removing anomaly in pay by upgradation of the pay of the senior to the level of his junior can arise only if both the senior and the junior belong to the same cadre and upon promotion to the same next promotional post which is also the same for both, the senior starts drawing less pay than the junior as held by the Hon’ble High Court of Tripura through the learned bench led by Justice Akil Kureshi in the case of Sri Subhas Chandra Barman v. The State of Tripura and Ors. (WP(C) No.332 of 2019).

Brief facts are that the petitioner joined the duty in Tripura State Rifles as a Rifleman (GD) on 02.11.1998. As against this, respondent No.7 who is admittedly his junior, joined the service in the same cadre on 24.12.1998. Thereafter, the career graphs of the petitioner and respondent No.7 took slightly different turns. For the time being to notice the grievance of the petitioner, he was drawing less pay than the respondent No.7 for the period between November, 2001 till 01.07.2010 and thereafter again during the period between 10.02.2014 till 01.07.2016. The petitioner made a representation to the department on 07.07.2018 seeking removal of the anomaly in the pay. This representation came to be rejected by impugned order dated 20.08.2018 on the ground that the case of the petitioner does not fall within the rules pertaining to stepping up of pay. Thereupon, the petitioner has approached this Court.

The Hon’ble Court held, “ In the present case, the crucial difference is that both the petitioner and respondent No.7 having entered service as Rifleman (GD) in the year 1998, respondent No.7 was first promoted to the post of Lance Naik. Naturally therefore, respondent No.7 started receiving pay in the promotional post which would be higher than that of the petitioner. The petitioner did not raise any grievance or challenge to the promotion of respondent No.7 to his exclusion. It is true that subsequently in the year 2004 the petitioner was posted on a higher post by way of transfer without benefit of pay fixation. This was a subsequent event and had nothing to do with the claim of the petitioner for promotion to the post of Lance Naik when respondent No.7 was promoted nearly three years earlier. If the petitioner was unhappy about this promotion, he ought to have challenged the same. The rest of the pay fixations follow the same pattern and the consequent disparity in pay of the petitioner vis-a-vis his junior, stem from this fact. The vital conditions of removing anomaly in pay are not fulfilled in the present case. Under the circumstances, Petition is dismissed.”

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Judgment reviewed by Vandana Ragwani