- (1.) This contempt petition is filed by Class III and Class IV employees of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) with the grievance that therespondent-FCI has not complied with the direction given by this court in its order of 3/05/1990. Two of the directions of which we find noncompliance by the respondents are: (I) Recommendations made in the report of the High Power Pay Committee with regard to the revised pay scales which were to be implemented w. e. f. 1/01/1986. (Ii) The employees concerned were to continue to enjoy the option to switch over to the Industrial Dearness Allowance (IDA) pattern of the scales of pay on a voluntary basis.
(2.) In its reply to the contempt petition, the respondent-FCI has pleaded that it was acting according to the directions of the central government. The counter filed on behalf of the Union of India shows that they have confused the case of the employees of the FCI with those of the other Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs). It is necessary, in this connection to refer to the recommendations of the High Power Pay Committee (H. P. P. Committee) which were directed to be implemented by our order of 3/05/1990. Para 8.27 to para 8.31 of the H. P. P. Committee report (Report) refers to the employees of the FCI and points out that from the beginning, the pay scales of the employees of FCI did not correspond to government pay scales and they were higher than the government pay scales for certain reasons. This difference in the pay scales was maintained throughout. However, when the H. P. P. Committee was seized of the matter, the declared policy of the government was that they would like the enterprises like the FCI which were following the CDA pattern to switch over to the IDA pattern and consequent to this, they could also get the higher pay scales available in IDA companies. If this happens, the earlier justification for maintaining the differential vis-a-vis government scales would disappear which justification had weighed with the Narang Committee which was appointed earlier in May 1974 to recommend the structure of emoluments and conditions of service of the employees of the FCI. Hence the H. P. P. Committee pointed out that it was difficult for them to make an exception in the case of FCI and recommend pay scales different from those recommended for other PSEs for future employees. However, the Committee held that in the case of existing incumbents who have already derived the benefit of the present differential, they had recognised the said differential and protected their interest by giving them personal scales of pay as elaborated in Ch. IX of the Report.
(3.) In para 9.8 of the Report, the Committee has stated that for the reasons discussed in the preceding paragraphs, they had recognised higher pay scales that had arisen in various PSEs, for the purpose of prescribing the new scales of pay. However, taking into account the corresponding Government scales of pay, they had recommended in Ch. VIII, the new scalesof pay for such posts based on the Fourth Pay Commission scales. The position, therefore, would be that in respect of all these posts, the existing Third Pay Commission pay scales will not be revised to the Fourth Pay Commission's replacement scales. Hence, to avoid hardship to the existing incumbents in these cases, they proposed giving personal scales of pay for those incumbents. They had been evolved on the basis of Fourth Pay Commission's replacement scales corresponding to the existing Third Pay commission scales excepting in the cases of top level posts for reasons mentioned at para 8.25 of the report. The Committee, therefore, recommended that as a special case, personal scales as indicated in Annx. 9.1 be given to the existing incumbents in those posts.;