- (1.) Pacts giving rise to this petition, which has been referred to a larger Bench by Rajendra Nath Mittal, J. are these
(2.) Petitioners at the material time were Reporters amongst others serving in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha Secretariat Speaker of the Vidhan Sabha vide letter dated July 2, 1970, recommended to the State Government that the pay scale of the Reporters should be brought at par with those of the Superintendents/ Private Secretaries in the Civil Secretarial. The Government accepted the recommendation. Consequently, a notification dated Oct. 26, 1970 (copy Annexure 'A' to the petition) giving effect to it, was issued in the Government Gazette. A copy of this notification was sent to the Accountant General. The Deputy Accountant General addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Vidhan Sabha with a view to elicit. information as to the incumbents affected by the notification and their status in the revised scale, gazetted or non-gazetted, so as to enable the office of the Accountant General to take suitable action in the matter. To this, the Secretary gave reply Dtd. Dec. 21, 1970 stating that the sanction issued by the Government, vide notification dated Oct. 26, 1970 was under consideration and necessary information would be supplied in due course. Even so it appears, the Speaker proceeded to sign a notification on May 17, 1971 containing the names of the Reporters of the benefit of revised pay scale for publication in the Government Gazette. Before the publication could be made, the Government cancelled the sanction granting revised pay scale by order dated May 18, 1971, copy of which has been appended as Annexure 'R. 3/1' to the written statement, furnished by the Secretary to the Vidhan Sabha. The notification to this effect was issued: which is dated June 8, 1971 and copy whereof is Annexure 'F' to the petition. On the direction of the Speaker, the Government was approached for the reconsideration of the matter. Government did not agree and so informed the Speaker through letter dated September 6, 1971. A memorial was submitted to the Governor on behalf of the Reporters against the order of the Government revoking the sanction in respect of the revised scale. The memorial did not find favour and was turned down.
(3.) Before proceeding to consider the arguments urged on behalf of the petitioners, it is necessary to make mention of the reason why the State Government cancelled the sanction to the revised scale. It has been stated in the written statement entered on behalf of the Deputy Secretary, General Administration, that the promotion from the post of Reporters had earlier been taking place to the post of Editors of Debates and that post was not gazetted till date. In view of this, decision to declare the posts of Reporters as gazetted and to equate them with the posts of Superintendents/Private Secretaries would have created administrative problems.;