Administrative instructions do not apply automatically to separate organizations without formal adoption by the competent authority.

The applicants are Medical Officers and an association representing them under the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).

They sought directions to the respondents to implement Office Memoranda (OM) dated 09.04.2019 and 01.12.2021 issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) for revised conveyance allowance, along with retrospective reimbursement from 01.07.2017

The applicants claimed parity with Central Health Service (CHS) doctors and Railway Medical Officers who had already been granted these revised rates

The respondents contended that conveyance allowance in ESIC is governed by specific statutory provisions and administrative circulars, emphasizing that the allowance is performance-linked, requiring the maintenance of logbooks and certification of domiciliary visits

The respondents argued that the CHS OMs are not automatically applicable to ESIC officers without formal adoption by the competent authority

1. Whether ESIC Medical Officers are entitled to the automatic grant of conveyance allowance at revised rates based on MoHFW OMs issued for CGHS/CHS doctors

2. Whether the denial of such parity constitutes a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution or an arbitrary administrative action

The Tribunal primarily applied Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, which governs the adjudication of service matters

It relied on the principle that administrative instructions issued for a specific department (such as MoHFW) do not automatically extend to other statutory organizations like ESIC unless consciously adopted by the competent authority

The Tribunal further applied the constitutional doctrine of equality under Article 14, establishing that parity cannot be claimed mechanically in the absence of identical service conditions and regulatory frameworks

The Tribunal reasoned that ESIC is a distinct statutory body with its own administrative and financial framework

It observed that conveyance allowance is not an unconditional entitlement but is "intrinsically linked" to the actual discharge of duties involving movement, such as domiciliary visits and emergency calls

The court found that the 2019 and 2021 OMs were specific to the CHS and contained stringent performance criteria that the applicants had not demonstrated they met

The Tribunal rejected the claim of parity, stating that mere similarity of duties does not equate to an identity in service conditions

It further noted that since ESIC had not formally adopted the specific OMs in question, the applicants lacked a vested legal right to the revised rates

Finally, the Tribunal held that judicial interference in policy-making regarding allowances and their financial implications is impermissible

It concluded that the respondents’ actions were neither arbitrary nor discriminatory, as they followed a structured and uniform scheme consistent with ESIC’s existing rules

The Original Application was dismissed as being devoid of merit

All pending Miscellaneous Applications were also disposed of