Employees drawing the pre-revised ₹5,000–8,000 or ₹5,500–9,000 scales are not entitled to Grade Pay ₹4,600.

The applicants were retired Group ‘C’ Railway employees of South Central Railway who claimed revision of their 6th Central Pay Commission pay by substituting Grade Pay (GP) of ₹4,600 for GP of ₹4,200 with effect from 1 January 2006.

The lead applicant, A.S.R. Murthy, had retired as Chief Enquiry & Reservation Supervisor on 31 January 2013.

The applicants’ cases were that the pre-revised scales of ₹5,000–8,000, ₹5,500–9,000 and ₹6,500–10,500 were merged under the 6th CPC and that Railway Board Letter RBE No. 226/2009 consequently entitled them to GP ₹4,600, with consequential revision of pay, pension and ACP/MACP benefits.

The respondents contended that the applicants were actually drawing the pre-revised scales of ₹5,000–8,000 or ₹5,500–9,000 as on 1 January 2006 and that RBE No. 226/2009 applied only to posts existing in the scale of ₹6,500–10,500 on that date.

The applicants’ representations were rejected, including by order dated 11 August 2025, and they thereafter approached the Tribunal after a substantial delay following retirement and receipt of their retirement benefits.

1. Whether the applicants, who were drawing the pre-revised scales of ₹5,000–8,000 or ₹5,500–9,000 as on 1 January 2006, were entitled to GP ₹4,600 under RBE No. 226/2009 with consequential revision of pay, pension and ACP/MACP benefits.

2. Whether the OAs were liable to be dismissed on the ground of delay, laches, limitation and acquiescence, the applicants having retired long earlier and having approached the Tribunal only after accepting their retirement benefits.

The Tribunal applied the Railway Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008 and the corresponding Railway Board instructions, including RBE Nos. 103/2008 and 108/2008, under which the pre-revised scales of ₹5,000–8,000 and ₹5,500–9,000 were placed in PB-2 with GP ₹4,200, while RBE No. 226/2009 upgraded to GP ₹4,600 only those posts which existed in the pre-revised scale of ₹6,500–10,500 as on 1 January 2006 and had received the normal replacement GP of ₹4,200.

The Tribunal also referred to the Department of Expenditure OM dated 13 November 2009, which contained the same limitation and linked GP ₹4,600 to the corresponding pre-revised scale of ₹7,450–11,500.

Pay fixation under Rule 7(1)(A)(i) was required to be made by applying the prescribed multiplication factor to the basic pay.

On delay and laches, the Tribunal relied on Shiba Shankar Mahapatra v. State of Orissa, State of U.P. v. Arvind Kumar Srivastava, Union of India v. M.K. Sarkar, Bhoop Singh v. Union of India, S.S. Balu v. State of Kerala and Chief Executive Officer v. S. Lalitha, applying the principles that stale claims cannot ordinarily be revived through belated representations, and that fence-sitters or persons guilty of inordinate delay and acquiescence may be denied relief.

The Tribunal found that the applicants’ own pleadings established that they were drawing ₹5,000–8,000 or ₹5,500–9,000 as on 1 January 2006, and that their pay had correctly been fixed in PB-2 with GP ₹4,200.

The merger of the three pre-revised scales for purposes of the revised pay structure did not automatically confer GP ₹4,600 on all employees in those scales.

Under the express wording of RBE No. 226/2009, the higher GP was confined to posts actually existing in the ₹6,500–10,500 scale on the relevant date; there was no authority for granting a further or “double” upgradation by first treating the applicants as being in ₹6,500–10,500 and then placing them in the corresponding ₹7,450–11,500 scale.

The Tribunal followed the reasoning of the coordinate Chennai Bench in Ashish Kumar Khare v. Union of India, which rejected an identical claim by employees drawing ₹5,000–8,000.

It further held that the pension-related OMs concerning pre-2006 pensioners who retired in the ₹6,500–10,500 scale did not assist the applicants because none of them had retired from that scale.

Independently, the claims were found to be stale: the applicants had retired years earlier, accepted retirement benefits, raised no timely objection and filed the OAs only after a prolonged delay. The subsequent rejection of their representations did not create a fresh cause of action.

It held that employees who were in the pre-revised scales of ₹5,000–8,000 or ₹5,500–9,000 as on 1 January 2006 were not entitled to GP ₹4,600 under RBE No. 226/2009; their fixation with GP ₹4,200 was valid.

The claims were also barred by delay, laches and limitation, and the applicants were treated as fence-sitters who had acquiesced in the fixation.

Accordingly, OA No. 982/2025 and all connected OAs were dismissed, with no order as to costs; pending miscellaneous applications, if any, were also disposed of.