Special Civil Application No. 10090 of 1999. Case: Ahmedabad Municipal Mazdoor Association Vs Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. High Court of Gujarat (India)
| Case Number | Special Civil Application No. 10090 of 1999 |
| Counsel | For Appellant: Hemal K. Acharya, Adv. and For Respondents: S.N. Shelat and Satyam Y. Chhaya, Advs. |
| Judges | Akil Abdul Hamid Kureshi and J. B. Pardiwala, JJ. |
| Issue | Constitution of India - Article 226 |
| Citation | 2014 LabIC 4063 |
| Judgement Date | September 01, 2014 |
| Court | High Court of Gujarat (India) |
Judgment:
Akil Abdul Hamid Kureshi, J.
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The petitioner, Ahmedabad Municipal Mazdoor Association, has filed this petition espousing the cause of the Assistant Engineers of the respondent Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. They have prayed for a writ of mandamus directing the Corporation to give retrospective effect to the revision of wages of the Assistant Engineers from the scale of Rs. 1640-2900 to Rs. 2000-3200 with effect from 1.1.1986, as is given to similarly situated employees of the State Government. Brief facts are as under:
1.1 The petitioner is an association of employees of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. The petitioner claims that the Assistant Engineers of the Corporation are also its members. The petitioner therefore, espouses the cause of the said class of the employees. The Municipal Corporation employees were clamoring since long for revision of the pay structure. Simultaneously, the State Government also was in the process of revising the pay scales of its employees for which the pay commission was set up. Insofar as the Corporation employees are concerned, the employees as well as the Corporation decided to resort to arbitration. Shri C.S. Barot, the sole arbitrator gave his award dated 31.7.1987. From the award itself, it appears that in the meantime, the State Government also received the recommendations of the 4th pay commission and implemented the same with minor modifications by way of Gujarat Civil Services (Revision of Pay) Rules, 1987 (notified in Gazette on 1.6.1987). The arbitrator took into account various factors including the revision of pay granted by the State Government to its employees. He pegged the scales of the Corporation employees at par with those of the State Government employees. In view of such substantial pay revision, he was of the opinion that the employees cannot demand a retrospective effect from 1.7.1983. On one hand, the pay was being revised handsomely, as a trade off, he curtailed the retrospectivity of the revision in his award to 1.1.1986. We may record his reasons for such revision and limited retrospectivity in his own words:
"2.4 In my Award Part-II I have traced in brief the history regarding the pay structure of the workmen of the Corporation. It was for the first time, through the Award of the Learned Arbitrator Shri I.G. Thakore that the workmen of the Corporation were, as far as possible, put on par with those of the State Government. The State Government had at that time implemented the recommendations of the Gujarat State Second pay Commission popularly known as the Desai Commission. Those the revised pay scales recommended by the Desai Commission and accepted by the State Govt. more or less, came to be granted to the workmen of the Corporation. Now, so far as the date of effect is concerned, the State Government had brought the revised pay scales in effect nationally from 1-1-1973 but effectively from 1-1-1974 while Shri Thakore Award give effect from 1-1-1976 (though the relevant Arbitration Agreement was published in August, 1974). I have already discussed on pages 24 and 25 of my Award Part-II the reasons why the learned Arbitrator Shri Thakore did not stick to the same date as decided by the State Government but instead decided a date three years subsequent to the date decided by the State Government for its employees. In fact, prior to making my Award Part-II Shri Gandhi, the learned advocate for the Corporation, had contended that this time also effect should be given from a later date, to which I did not agree. For the reasons recorded in my Award Part-II, I have come to the conclusion that the revised pay scales should be granted to the workmen of the Corporation from the same date as decided by the State Government for its employees viz. 1-1-1986, to repeat those reasons here for the sake of clarity, the workmen of the Corporation at that time were getting 100% Central Dearness Allowance whereas the State Govt. employees were receiving much less by way of Dearness Allowance. To balance this position, the learned Arbitrator Shri Thakore, instead of curtailing the Dearness Allowance, shortened the retrospective effect. This in effect with the Award of Shri Thakore the workmen of...
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