A Senior Employee cannot be paid a Lesser Salary than a Junior Employee.

The sixteen petitioners are Medical Officers serving in various Government District Hospitals and Community Health Centres in Madhya Pradesh

They were selected through the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission (MPPSC) and appointed prior to 01.01.2014

All petitioners possess recognized Post Graduate Degrees or Diplomas obtained between 2002 and 2012

On 23.04.2015, the State issued a Circular (Annexure P/1) granting three advance increments to doctors with PG Degrees and two for PG Diplomas, but restricted this benefit solely to those selected through MPPSC after 01.01.2014

Consequently, the petitioners were excluded based on their appointment date, leading to a situation where their juniors (appointed after the cut-off) received higher salaries

The petitioners challenged this cut-off date as arbitrary and discriminatory under Article 226

1. Whether the fixation of 01.01.2014 as a cut-off date for granting advance increments to Medical Officers is arbitrary, discriminatory, and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution

2. Whether a senior employee can be paid a lesser salary than a junior employee serving in the same cadre and possessing identical qualifications

The Court applied the principle of Pay Parity, specifically the rule that a senior cannot be paid a lesser salary than a junior in the same cadre

Er. Gurcharan Singh Grewal v. Punjab State Electricity Board [(2009) 3 SCC 94], which establishes that pay anomalies where juniors earn more must be rectified by "stepping up" the senior's pay

Commissioner & Secretary to Govt. of Haryana v. Ram Sarup Ganda [(2011) 15 SCC 772], affirming that such stepping up is a common practice to resolve structural pay anomalies

Virender Parshad v. State of Haryana [2013 2 SCT 728], which held that officers acquiring qualifications before or after joining constitute a homogenous class and cannot be excluded by artificial classification

The Court noted that the petitioners and the beneficiaries of the 23.04.2015 Circular belong to the same cadre of Medical Officers and were selected via the same MPPSC process

The respondents failed to provide any rational basis or justification for fixing 01.01.2014 as the cut-off date, neither in the impugned order nor in their reply to the petition

By applying the cut-off, the State created an artificial division within a homogenous class of doctors holding PG qualifications, directly leading to an anomaly where seniors received lower pay than juniors

The Court reasoned that under the settled principles of equity and Article 14, the pay of the senior must be "stepped up" to match that of the junior to maintain service hierarchy and fairness

The Court allowed the petition and quashed the impugned Circular dated 23.04.2015 to the extent that it fixed a cut-off date of 01.01.2014. The respondents were directed to step up the petitioners' pay, grant all consequential benefits/arrears within three months, and failing that, pay interest at 6% per annum