MAHUVA MUNICIPALITY vs PANDYA CHANDRAKANT DHANJIBHAI
- Court
- Gujarat High Court
C/LPA/127/2024 JUDGMENT DATED: 01/07/2026
IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD
R/LETTERS PATENT APPEAL NO. 127 of 2024
In
R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION/13119/2018
With
CIVIL APPLICATION (FOR STAY) NO. 1 of 2023
In
R/LETTERS PATENT APPEAL NO. 127 of 2024
With
CIVIL APPLICATION (FOR VACATING INTERIM RELIEF) NO. 2 of 2024
In
R/LETTERS PATENT APPEAL NO. 127 of 2024
==========================================================
MAHUVA MUNICIPALITY
Versus
PANDYA CHANDRAKANT DHANJIBHAI & ORS.
==========================================================
Appearance:
SANGEETA PAHWA for THAKKAR AND PAHWA ADVOCATES(1357) for
the Appellant(s) No. 1
ADVANCE COPY SERVED TO ANTRIX KAPADIYA ASST.GOVERNMENT
PLEADER/PP for the Respondent(s) No. 14
DECEASED LITIGANT THROUGH LEGAL HEIRS/ REPRESENTATIVES for
the Respondent(s) No. 10,11,6,9
MS. ALKA B VANIYA(6945) for the Respondent(s) No.
1,10.1,11.1,2,3,4,5.1,5.2,6.1,7,8,9.1
RULE NOT RECD BACK for the Respondent(s) No. 1,14,3,4,7
RULE SERVED for the Respondent(s) No. 13,15,16,8
SERVED BY AFFIX. (R) for the Respondent(s) No. 12
UNSERVED EXPIRED (R) for the Respondent(s) No. 2
==========================================================
CORAM: HONOURABLE MR.JUSTICE N.S.SANJAY GOWDA
and
HONOURABLE MR.JUSTICE J. L. ODEDRA
Date : 01/07/2026
ORAL JUDGMENT
(PER : HONOURABLE MR.JUSTICE N.S.SANJAY GOWDA)
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C/LPA/127/2024 JUDGMENT DATED: 01/07/2026
1. The petitioners are retired employees of the Mahuva
Municipality. They had filed a writ petition seeking for a
direction that they be extended the benefits of the 6th Pay
Commission, as had been ordered to be extended to the
other employees of the Mahuva Municipality on the basis
of the judgement rendered by the learned Single Judge of
this Court in SCA No.3060 of 2015.
2. The claim of the petitioners, as stated above, was that they
should be paid the benefits of the 6th Pay Commission
from 01.01.2006 and this contention was advanced solely
on the premise that the same benefit had been extended to
the other employees of the Mahuva Municipality.
3. The learned Single Judge, by the impugned order, has
accepted the plea after taking into consideration that
similarly placed employees of the Mahuva Municipality
were extended the benefit of the 6th Pay Commission from
01.01.2006 and has, accordingly, issued appropriate
directions for payment of benefits.
4. Being aggrieved by this order, the Municipality is in
appeal.
5. Learned counsel appearing for the appellant seeks to
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contend that the extension of the 6th Pay Commission
from 01.01.2006 is fundamentally flawed, since in the very
judgement, which has been relied upon, the prayer made
by the petitioners therein was for extension of the benefit
from 01.01.2009. She submits that since the order passed
by the learned Single Judge in SCA No.3060 of 2015 is
palpably incorrect, the same could not have been followed
by the learned Single Judge.
6. It is to be noticed here that the judgement rendered in SCA
No.3060 of 2015 extending the benefits of the 6th Pay
Commission to the petitioners therein who were also
employees of Mahuva Municipality with effect from
01.01.2006 was challenged by the Municipality by
preferring LPA No.235 of 2018. It is not in dispute that a
Division Bench of this Court dismissed the said Letters
Patent Appeal on 21.02.2018.
7. The Mahuva Municipality, in fact, challenged the direction
issued by the learned Single Judge as affirmed by the
Division Bench by filing the SLP before the Supreme Court
in SLP (Civil) Diary No. 3760 of 2019. The Supreme Court
has also dismissed the said SLP on 01.04.2019. The
consequence of these proceedings in relation to the
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C/LPA/127/2024 JUDGMENT DATED: 01/07/2026
similarly situated employees of Mahuva Municipality is
that they have got the benefits of the 6th Pay Commission
from 01.01.2006. However, the said benefits are not
extended to the petitioners, who are similarly situated.
8. It cannot be in dispute that if the benefits of a Pay
Commission are to be extended, it will have to be extended
to all the employees and the extension cannot be restricted
only to one set of employees and denied to the other. The
argument of the Municipality that the petitioners had not
agitated for their right to get the benefit of the 6th Pay
Commission will only have to be stated to be rejected.
9. The moment the Municipality suffered the adverse order,
which made them liable to extend the benefits from
01.01.2006, the Municipality cannot take a shelter behind
technicalities to deny their liability.
10. As stated above, the benefits of the Pay Commission are to
the benefit of all employees after the State accepts that the
salaries that were being paid to them were inadequate due
to the passage of time, and due to inflation. If one set of
employees are granted this benefit and another set of
employees of the same employer are denied, that would be
a direct assault on Article 14. The learned Single Judge,
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was therefore, justified in passing the impugned order.
11. Learned Counsel for the Municipality, however, seeks to
place reliance on the judgement rendered by the Apex
Court in the case of State of Uttar Pradesh and ors. vs.
Arvind Kumar Srivastava and ors, (2015) 1 SCC 347. In
this case, the Supreme Court has, in fact, held as follows:-
“22.xxx xxx xxx
22.1 The normal rule is that when a particular set of
employees is given relief by the court, all other
identically situated persons need to be treated alike by
extending that benefit. Not doing so would amount to
discrimination and would be violative of Article 14 of
the Constitution of India. This principle needs to be
applied in service matters more emphatically as the
service jurisprudence evolved by this Court from time to
time postulates that all similarly situated persons
should be treated similarly. Therefore, the normal rule
would be that merely because other similarly situated
persons did not approach the Court earlier, they are not
to be treated differently.
22.2 However, this principle is subject to well-
recognized exceptions in the form of laches and delays
as well as acquiescence. Those persons who did not
challenge the wrongful action in their cases and
acquiesced into the same and woke up after long delay
only because of the reason that their counterparts who
had approached the court earlier in time succeeded in
their efforts, then such employees cannot claim that the
benefit of the judgment rendered in the case of similarly
situated persons be extended to them. They would be
treated as fence-sitters and laches and delays, and/or
the acquiescence, would be a valid ground to dismiss
their claim.”
12. It could be seen from Paragraph No.22.1 of the said
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judgement, normally, the employer is required to apply the
principle of law laid down by a Court in respect of one
employee and extend the same to all similarly situated
employees. The only exception provided for by the Supreme
Court is that other set of employees had acquiesced to the
act of the Municipality and, thereby bound themselves by
it. In such a situation, the Supreme Court has held that
the employee, who had woken up after long delay should
not be given the benefit that had been earned by the other
set of employees.
13. In this case, admittedly, there is no denial of the claim of
the petitioners of their entitlement of the 6th Pay
Commission from 01.01.2006. The claim of the petitioners
was never considered, let alone be rejected. Therefore, the
question of their acquiescence would not arise. It may also
be pertinent to state here that the Corporation does not
dispute its liability to extend the benefits of having 6th Pay
Commission and once it acknowledges this fact, the
question of the Municipality putting forth the plea of
acquiescence would be improper.
14. Another argument was advanced by the learned counsel
that the relief granted to the respondent employees to three
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years preceding the filing of the writ petition on the basis of
the judgement rendered by the Apex Court in the case of
Union of India and others vs.Tarsem Singh, (2008) 8 SCC
648 cannot also be accepted. In this case also, the
Supreme Court was dealing with the case where there was
a belated claim made by an employee against the wrongful
rejection of his entitlement. As noticed above, there has
been no rejection of the claim of the appellants for being
extended the benefits of the 6th Pay Commission from
01.01.2006 and the claim remained lingering from the
very inception.
15. As noticed above, this claim of the appellants ought to have
been accepted gracefully by the Municipality, the moment
it suffered an adverse order in SCA No.3060 of 2015, which
has also been affirmed by the Division Bench and the
Supreme Court.
16. We, therefore, find no merits in the appeal. The Appeal is,
therefore, dismissed. As a consequence, the
Municipality/Nagarpalika is directed to extend the benefits
of the 6th Pay Commission to the respondents within a
period of six weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this
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C/LPA/127/2024 JUDGMENT DATED: 01/07/2026
order. Connected Civil Applications also stand disposed of,
accordingly.
(N.S.SANJAY GOWDA,J)
(J. L. ODEDRA, J)
SUDHIR
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