Rajwant Sandhu, Member (A) - (1.) THIS O.A. has been filed under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, seeking the following relief: "8 (i) That impugned order dated 12.07.2013 (A -1) rejecting the claim of the applicant be quashed and set aside being wholly illegal and arbitrary. (ii) Respondents be directed to afford opportunity to revise his option for fixation of his pay as is beneficial to him to remove the anomaly in accordance with law laid by this Tribunal in the case of Mohinder Singh and Khem Singh etc. with all consequential benefits of pay fixation and arrears."
(2.) AVERMENT has been made in the OA that the applicant was initially engaged by the Respondent Department as Mazdoor w.e.f. 29.4.1982. He was promoted as Tent Mender w.e.f. 11.1.1989 in the pay scale of Rs. 800 -1150. The pay fixation was done by the respondents at their own level without seeking any option from the applicant. Also the applicant being a low paid employee in Group D category was unaware of the technicalities of pay fixation. Although he was entitled to pay fixation after getting annual increment in the promotional post or after getting increment in a lower post as per FR 22 -C, he was not asked to exercise option by the respondents and the pay was fixed after granting him increment of the promotional post. The date of annual increment was also changed to January each year instead of from April each year. In 1995, on coming to know that the applicant was drawing lesser pay than his junior Sh. Dhuni Chand who was promoted as Tent Mender after the applicant w.e.f. 17.05.1994, the applicant submitted a representation to the respondent Department for stepping up his pay at par with his junior, which was rejected vide order dated 10.01.1996. Thereafter, the applicant submitted another representation bringing it to the notice of Respondent No. 2 that his basic pay had been fixed at Rs. 3440/ - whereas pay of his junior Sh. Ramesh Chand was fixed at Rs. 3510/ -. This representation was also rejected and it was mentioned in the order dated 21.11.2002 that the junior to the applicant was getting higher pay only on account of financial up gradation under the ACP Scheme whereas, the applicant could not be granted benefit of ACP Scheme as he had been promoted to the post of Tent Mender.
(3.) THEREAFTER , the applicant submitted another representation on 5.7.2013 bringing it to the notice of the Respondents that his date of annual increment was changed from April 1989 to January 1990 therefore, he requested the respondents to correct his date of annual increment (Annexure A -2). The respondents then conveyed to the applicant vide impugned order dated 12.7.2013 (Annexure A -1) that the applicant did not opt for fixation of his pay after getting increment on the lower post which was required to be exercised within one month.;