Himachal HC orders higher grade pay for Health Educators from 2012. The Government Directed to implement order within four weeks time...
SHIMLA: The Himachal Pradesh High Court has quashed the State’s decision to grant Health Educators Grade Pay of Rs 4,200 only from February 1, 2016, holding that the decision-making process was vitiated by non-application of mind and resulted in hostile discrimination.
A Division Bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Ranjan Sharma directed the State to grant Health Educators an appropriate proportionately higher Grade Pay over and above Rs 4,200 with effect from October 1, 2012.
The court noted that Health Educators were promotional posts under the 1999 Recruitment and Promotion Rules, while Health Supervisors were feeder posts. Despite this, the feeder posts were granted Grade Pay of Rs 4,200 from October 1, 2012, whereas Health Educators received the same Grade Pay only from February 1, 2016.
The court also quashed the State’s decision to change the nomenclature of Health Educators from “promotion” to “placement”, observing that the statutory recruitment rules had not been amended.
The court held that the State could not selectively apply the 2012 revised pay rules in a manner that created an artificial equivalence between feeder and promotional posts.
It directed the State to notionally fix pay from October 1, 2012 and release actual monetary benefits for three years preceding the filing of the writ petition, from September 15, 2013, along with consequential benefits.
The State has been directed to implement the order and release the benefits within four weeks.
