Rajiv Narain Raina, J. - (1.) The petitioners are Sectional Officers (Civil) and Assistant Engineers (Civil) in the Fisheries Department, Haryana. They belong to the Engineering background. They claim that their post is identical to the post of Junior Engineers in the three wings of the Public Works Department. In 1979 the post of Sectional Officer was re-designated as Junior Engineer in PWD (B&R) Department. Similarly, in other departments of the Haryana Government, namely, Panchayati Raj, Town and Country Planning, HUDA and the Agriculture Department the post was re-designated as Junior Engineer. As regards, the post of AE (Civil) the same has not been provided the pay scale as admissible to Assistant Engineers of other Government Departments of Haryana. The petitioners claim that an anomaly in the pay scale of Sectional Officer (Civil) has persisted since April 01, 1979. They claim that they were initially recruited in a joint advertisement for recruitment to the post of Sectional Officer (Civil) conducted for various departments including the three wings of the PWD by the Haryana Subordinate Services Selection Board (presently known as the Haryana Staff Selection Commission) without seeking their options. Petitioner No.9 was deputed to the Fisheries Department in the year 1975. As far as the other petitioners are concerned, the mode and year of appointment in the Fisheries Department is later on different dates. They were initially appointed in FFDA from 1983 to 1994 and were absorbed in the Fisheries Department in 2004 and 2006 respectively. Therefore, the State contends in rebuttal to the petition that petitioners No.1 to 8 have no locus to challenge the pay revision w.e.f. April 01, 1979 or to make a claim to the effect that that the post of Sectional Officer (Civil) be re-designated as JE (Civil) to bring them on par with other Government departments of Haryana.
(2.) As far as petitioner No.9-Ramesh Chand is concerned he joined as SO (Civil) on November 12, 1975 and was promoted as Assistant Engineer (Group-B) on August 02, 1987. He filed a writ petition bearing CWP No.10087 of 1997 for grant of pay scale as per Government letter dated June 02, 1989 which was dismissed by the Division Bench on July 20, 1998 on the ground that the benefit of the notification enhancing the pay scale to Rs.3000-4500 was given only to Engineers carrying the pay scale of Rs. 2000-3500 while the petitioners were placed in the pay scale of Rs.2000- 3200. The claim of the petitioners in the present case is to re-designate them as Junior Engineers and accordingly pay them salary in the pay scale admissible to Junior Engineers working in the other departments. Therefore, the first direction they seek is to convert their post as Junior Engineers and then to place them in the higher pay scale of JEs.
(3.) The State in its reply says that this case is not one of pay anomaly but of change of nomenclature of posts in the Fisheries Department. The State is on record to submit that Assistant Engineers (Civil) and Sectional Officers (Civil) in the Fisheries Department made a representation to the authorities which was placed before the Anomaly Committee in its meeting held on January 07, 2011 and the request was rejected with the following observations:- "The committee observed that AD has not recommended the demand. The job profile and nature of duties and responsibilities is qualitatively and quantitatively different/inferior as compared to their counterpart in PWD (three wings). There is no historical and established parity in the scales of the two cadres. Mere on the basis of qualification parity cannot be claimed as per every instruction dated 20.04.2001. Hence the committee rejected the demand of Assistant Engineer (Civil) and Sectional Officer (Civil) for grant of pay parity with their counterparts in PWD (three wings), being devoid of merit.";