Enhanced pay-scale benefits cannot be confined in personam when similarly situated employees are entitled.

The applicant, a retired Superintendent of Central GST and Customs, challenged the respondents’ rejection dated 22 July 2026 of his request for the enhanced pay scale with effect from 1 January 1996, instead of 21 April 2004.

The respondents relied upon communications dated 25 July 2023 and 4 August 2025 stating that the Department of Expenditure had not agreed to extend the benefit generally, and treated earlier judicial orders granting the benefit to similarly placed employees as applicable only in personam.

The applicant had served as an Inspector from 1 January 1996 to 6 October 2002 and as a Superintendent from 7 October 2002 to 21 April 2004.

He contended that he was identically situated to employees who had received the enhanced pay scale notionally from 1 January 1996 pursuant to orders of the CAT Hyderabad Bench and subsequent proceedings before the High Court of Telangana and the Supreme Court.

The applicant relied, inter alia, on the Telangana High Court’s judgment dated 9 August 2024 in Union of India v. R. Siva Shankara Sastry, W.P. No. 10490/2024, which upheld the CAT Hyderabad Bench’s direction to grant the enhanced pay scale notionally from 1 January 1996.

The Special Leave Petition filed against that judgment was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 28 February 2025.

He also relied on several subsequent orders of the Ahmedabad Bench extending the same benefit to similarly placed officials.

1. Whether the applicant, being similarly situated to officials who had been granted the enhanced pay scale notionally from 1 January 1996, was entitled to equal treatment and extension of the same benefit?

2. Whether the respondents could deny the applicant the benefit by treating the earlier orders as applicable only on an in-personam basis?

3. Whether the rejection dated 22 July 2026 and the related departmental communications denying the benefit were sustainable?

The application was filed under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985.

The Tribunal applied the principle of equal treatment among similarly situated government employees, holding that a settled judicial determination concerning the entitlement of a class of employees should not ordinarily be confined to the individual litigants where the affected employee is identically placed.

It relied on the CAT Hyderabad Bench’s decision granting the enhanced pay scale from 1 January 1996, the Telangana High Court’s affirmation of that decision in Union of India v. R. Siva Shankara Sastry, and the dismissal of the Department’s SLP by the Supreme Court on 28 February 2025.

The Tribunal also followed its own decisions in similarly situated cases, including OA No. 411/2025 dated 16 December 2025, which had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Tribunal found it undisputed that the applicant had held the relevant Inspector and Superintendent posts during the period for which the enhanced pay scale was claimed and was therefore similarly placed with the officials who had already received the benefit.

Since the legal issue concerning the retrospective, notional enhancement from 1 January 1996 had been settled through the Hyderabad proceedings, the Telangana High Court judgment, the Supreme Court proceedings, and several coordinate Bench decisions, the respondents could not lawfully deny the applicant identical treatment merely by describing those orders as in personam.

The departmental rejection was consequently held untenable because it disregarded the settled position and resulted in unequal treatment of employees similarly situated.

The respondents were directed to implement the order preferably within 60 days from receipt of the certified copy and to communicate the decision to the applicant.

The OA was accordingly disposed of at the admission stage.