- (1.) HEARD learned counsel for the parties. These bunch of writ petitions involving substantially common questions of facts and laws are being decided by this, judgment. S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 619/1999 & 620/99. (1) Six petitioners preferred this writ petition No. 619/1999. All these petitioners were appointed on the post of Additional Superintendent/Assistant Superintendent vide orders issued on various dates in the years from 1985 to 1986, copies of which are placed on record jointly as Annex. 1. These appointment orders were issued by the District Probation and Social Welfare Officer, Banswara. In the appointment orders of the petitioners No. 1, 4, 5, & 6 it is mentioned that they are appointed on the post of Additional Superintendents on fixed allowance of Rs. 250/- per month with the condition that petitioners will have to remain at headquarters and they will have to work regularly and daily. In the appointment order of the respondents No. 2 & 3, it is mentioned that they are appointed on the post of Assistant Superintendents with the same condition of remaining at headquarters. In these orders Rs. 250/- have been termed as salary and not as allowance. These all appointments are described as temporary appointments. According to petitioners, duties of Superintendents and Assistant Superintendents have been detailed in the Government Aided Hostel Control Rules, 1982 (for the short Rules of 1982). The duties of the Superintendents and Assistant Superintendents are given in rule 6 of Rules of 1982. Sub-Rule 7 of Rule 6 of Rules of 1982 provides that the duties/work of Additional Superintendents will be the same as of Assistant Superintendents appointed in the government hostels and wherever in the Rules of 1982 designation of Assistant Superintendent has been used, it will be read as Additional Superintendent for the aided hostels. Meaning thereby work and duties of Additional Superintendent and the work and duties of the Assistant Superintendents shall be the same. Only difference appears to be of description, and if read with sub-rules (8) and (10) of the rule 1 of the rules of 1982 further difference is that Assistant Superintendents are to be appointed by the department whereas Additional Superintendents are to be appointed by the added societies. It is relevant to mention here that though as per sub- rules (8) and (10) of the rule 1, appointing authorities are different for the above two posts but all the petitioners were appointed by the respondents No. 3 and not by the aided institution, irrespective of the post, whether on the post of Addl. Superintendent or on the post of Assistant Superintendent. The State Government on 7th June 1996 amended the Rules of 1982 and deleted the prefix "Assistant" from the post Assistant Superintendent. The petitioners claimed that after deletion of the world "Assistant" from the Rules of 1982, the petitioners are working on the post of the Superintendents. The petitioners are working on the post of Superintendents is an admitted fact as the respondents have admitted it in their reply to the writ petition.
(2.) THE petitioner of the S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 620/1999 was appointed on the post of Superintendent by the respondents No. 6 "Sangh" vide Annex. 1. Except this difference of appointment, the facts and the grounds raised in this writ petition are similar to the facts of the S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 619/1999. The grievances of the petitioners are that the petitioners who were appointed by the respondent Govt. Dept. and working on the post of Superintendents in aided hostels were appointed under the Rules of 1982 and are governed by the same Rules and are discharging the same duties which are being discharged by the Superintendents appointed by the same Dept. under same Rules of 1982 but only difference is that they are working in the government hostels whereas the petitioners are working in the hostels which are aided by the government. Only because of the reason that the petitioners are working in the aided hostels the petitioners are being paid salary of only petty amount of Rs. 250/- per month whereas the Superintendents appointed in the government hostels are being paid much more higher salaries than the petitioners. The salaries of the petitioner have no comparison with the salary paid to the Superintendents working in the government hostels. The salaries of the petitioners is only Rs. 250/- against salaries of the Superintendents working in government hostels which is Rs. 4000-6100 for category "A" & "B" hostels and Rs. 3200-4900 for the category "C" hostels. According to petitioners of these two writ petitions, though they are not being paid the adequate salary still respondents are threatening that their services will be terminated by the respondents, therefore, the petitioners preferred these writ petitions seeking relief's of regularisation of their services on the post of Hostel Superintendent from the date of their initial appointment and directions against the respondents directing them to pay the petitioners, pay at per which is being paid to the Hotel Superintendent of class "C" hostels of the Social Welfare Dept. of the Government and in the alternative, the respondents be directed to pay the salary to the petitioners in the pay scales provided by the Rajasthan Civil Services (Revised Scales) Rules, 1998 from the date the petitioners were appointed with further direction to respondents to pay the salary with interest @ of 18% per annum. It is relevant to mention here that in S.B. Civil Writ Petitions No. 619/99 and 620/99 no interim order was passed but in these two writ petitions, the learned counsel for the respondents sought time to "take instructions whether in case of the Assistant Hostel Superintendents, a scheme which has been framed by the State and approved by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in respect of Cooks and Chowkidars, can also be prepared and implemented for the reasons that they are also working for more than 15 years." Despite time granted, the Govt. did not take any decision regarding grievances of the petitioners. S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 4106/99, S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1628/99 Roshan Ali and Lekh Ram preferred two writ petitions, S.B. Civil Writ Petition 4016/99 and S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1628/99. Both these petitioners alleged that they were appointed in the government hostels on the posts of Chowkidar. The petitioner Roshan Ali placed on record his appointment order Annexure-1 which was issued by the Assistant Superintendent, Government Hostel, Sri Ganganagar. The Petitioner Lekh Ram has not submitted his appointment order. But his appointment on the post of Chowkidar is not in dispute rather it has been admitted by the respondents in their reply to the writ. These petitioners are getting the Rs. 600/- P.M. only which is said to be salary by the petitioners. The petitioner's services are in danger due to the order 28.12.98 of the State Government in pursuance of which, the District Probation and Social Welfare Officer issued follow up order dated 21.1.99, directing the concerned hostels to remove part-time Chowkidars and Cooks and appoint Ex-military employee or Ex-military employee's widows. The petitioners apprehending their termination of services preferred these two writ petitions seeking quashing of the order dated 28.12.1998 and 21.1.1999 on the grounds that when the services of the Cooks and Chowkidars have been regularised earlier by the State Government by framing a scheme and there exists no reason for not regularising the services of the present petitioners by applying same principle which was applied earlier. It is also submitted that need of the Chowkidar in hostels is imperative which is also apparent from the order dated 21.1.1999 (Annexure-2) wherein it is mentioned that after removing these part-time employees the post may be filled up from Ex-military employee or from widows of Ex-military employee. It is also submitted that the petitioners are being discriminated and their services are being terminated only to give appointment to the Ex-military employees and their widows to give favour based on no reason and petitioners even right of consideration is denied by the respondents. The petitioners cannot be replaced by these persons. (5). The respondents submitted that though these petitioners were appointed on the post of Chowkidar in the Government Hostels but their appointment orders were issued by the Mess Committee which is constituted from the students residing in the hostels and the appointments were not made by the Government. The State Government is giving only fixed amount of Rs. 600/- per month which is in the form of an aid to the concerned hostel and is paid to the Mess Committee which in turn, pays to these Chowkidars. In the reply to the writ petition it is also submitted that the State Government issued an order on 28.12.1998 in compliance to the order of the High Court Dated 15.7.1998 passed in Ram Babu Sharma vs. State & Ors. (1), and decided to stop practice of appointing employees of class IV on consolidated salary/wages and also decided not to keep any employee appointed on consolidated amount/wages, therefore, it was ordered that no further appointment be given to any person on consolidated salary/wages and wherever employees are working on the consolidated salary/wages, they should be removed from service. According to the respondents, therefore, the Department of Personnel issued instructions and directed that those persons who have been engaged in consolidated amount should be removed immediately. It is relevant to mention here that in the above judgment, the High Court deprecated the tendency of the employing Class IV employees or employing any person on any other post on the consolidated amount/wages. It is further submitted by the respondents that the Chowkidars and the Cooks are only part-time employees that too for ten months in a year only and, therefore, the petitioners accepted work on amount of Rs. 600/- per month which was earlier Rs. 300/- per month only. The scheme framed and placed before the Hon'ble Supreme Court to regularise the services of the Chowkidars and Cooks was applicable only upon those employees who were working on 1.5.1995 whereas the petitioners were appointed in the month of January, 1998 and, therefore, they are not covered under the scheme. The respondents in their reply could not give any answer to the questions posed by the petitioners that why the petitioners' services are being terminated merely for making way for another temporary appointment, that is for Ex-army service men or their widows and why the services of petitioners cannot be considered for substantive appointment as per their merit. In these two writ petitions, this Court by order dated 17.5.1999 and 11.11.1999 restrained the respondents from terminating the services of the petitioners, therefore, the petitioners are in service. . S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1627/99, S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1706/99 and S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 59/2001 These three writ petitions are filed by the employees, petitioners Hans Raj and Tej Pal (S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1627/99), Smt. Meera (S.B. Civil Writ Petition N. 1706/99) and Manna Lal (S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 59/2001) who were appointed on the post of the Cook in the Government Hostel run by the Social Welfare Department on fixed salary of Rs. 600/- per month. These petitioners are seeking relief of quashing of the order dated 28 December 1998 and the order dated 21st January 1999 with further prayers that the respondents be restrained from terminating services of the petitioners and the respondents be directed to pay the salary, payable to the Cooks/Class IV employees which is being paid to the cooks in term of the order of this Court and the order of Hon'ble Supreme Court. The pleas which are taken in the reply to the writ petitions filed by the employees working on the post of Chowkidar are also taken in reply to these writ petitions. In S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1706/99 and in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1627/99 on 17.5.1999 this Court directed respondents to maintain the status quo regarding service of the petitioners but in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 59/2001 no interim order was passed and on 23.4.2001 the Court directed to list S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 59/2001 along with other writ petitions No. 1627/99, 1628/99 and 1706/99.
(3.) IN considered the arguments advanced by the learned counsel for the parties, perused the record. Though there are different posts involved in these writ petitions and there are different appointment orders issued by different authorities but looking to the nature of controversy and the point of law involved in these writ petitions, all the writ petitions were heard together and are being decided by this common judgment. Learned counsel for the respondents raised the preliminary objections that the effective alternate remedy is available to the petitioners to challenge the action of the respondents and the petitioners may approach the Labour Court for redressal of their grievances and relied upon the Constitution Bench decision of this Court delivered in the case of Gopi Lal Teli vs. The State of Rajasthan & Others, (2), and upon the of judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court delivered in the case of Secretary, Minor Irrigation and Rural Engineering Services, U.P. and others vs. Sahangoo Ram Arya & Another (3), where in the Apex Court held that when the statute has provided for the constitution of the Tribunal for adjudicating the disputes of a government servant, the fact that the Tribunal has no authority to grant an interim order is no ground to by-pass the said Tribunal. The learned counsel for the respondents further submitted that when disputed questions of facts are involved, the writ petition cannot be maintained and in support of this learned counsel for the respondents relies upon the judgments of Hon'ble Supreme Court delivered in the cases of State of M.P. and others vs. M.V. Vyasaya & Co. (4), State of Goa & others vs. Leukoplast (India) Ltd. (5), Visakhapatnam Port Trust and others vs. Ram Bahadur Thakur Pvt. Ltd. (6). The respondents also submitted that since in some of the writ petitions the petitioners have not impleaded the voluntary organisation under whom the petitioners are working, therefore, the writ petitions of the petitioners deserve to be dismissed on this count also. From the facts referred above in detail, it is clear that the facts which are necessary for deciding these writ petitions are not in dispute. The relevant facts are that the petitioners are working on the post of Superintendent, Chowkidars and on the post of Cooks. They are claiming equal salary on the ground of parity in work with the employees working on the same post in the government hostel which are run by the Social Welfare Department of the government. The amount of salary paid to the petitioners and their counterparts in the Social Welfare Department are not in dispute rather are admitted facts. The duties which are discharged by the petitioners and the similarity in the duties which are being performed by the petitioner's counterpart in the Hostels run by Social Welfare Department of the Government are also not in dispute rather it is an admitted fact by the respondents that the employees appointed in the hostel is run by the Social Welfare Department of the government and the duties of the employees appointed in the Hostel run by the voluntary organisation or societies are the same. Not only this but the Rules of 1982 also says that work and duties will be the same, irrespective of fact whether these employees are working in the Hostels run by voluntary organisations or societies or by the Social Welfare Department of the Govt. It is also admitted fact that both the set of employees are governed by the same rules of 1982. Letal question on the basis of above undisputed facts arises is whether the petitioners are entitled for the same pay which their counter parts are getting? Therefore, the writ petition of the petitioners cannot be dismissed on alleged ground of involvement of disputed questions of facts and the judgments relied upon by the learned counsel for the respondents have no application to the facts of this case. It is further relevant to mention here that in the writ petition in which the voluntary organisation is also party, no such objection was raised by those private respondents. ;