Enhanced pay-scale benefits must be extended notionally from 1 January 1996 to all similarly situated employees.

The applicant, a retired Superintendent of Central GST and Customs, challenged the respondents’ rejection dated 23 July 2026 of her claim for grant of the enhanced pay scale from 1 January 1996 instead of 21 April 2004.

The respondents relied on communications dated 25 July 2023 and 4 August 2025, stating that the Department of Expenditure had not agreed to extending the benefit generally and that earlier orders had been implemented only in personam.

The applicant contended that she was similarly situated to officials who had received the enhanced pay scale pursuant to orders of the CAT Hyderabad Bench, the Telangana High Court, and subsequent orders of the Supreme Court.

She had served as an Inspector from 19 December 2002 to 21 April 2004 and thereafter as a Superintendent.

The respondents had extended the benefit notionally from 1 January 1996 to other similarly placed officials, but denied the applicant the same treatment on the ground that the earlier judicial orders were confined to the individual litigants.

The applicant accordingly sought quashing of the rejection and related communications, and grant of the revised pay scale with consequential benefits from 1 January 1996.

Whether the applicant, being similarly situated to officials who had been granted the enhanced pay scale, was entitled to equal extension of that benefit from 1 January 1996 on a notional basis?

Whether the respondents could deny the benefit by treating the earlier CAT and High Court orders as applicable only in personam?

Whether the rejection order dated 23 July 2026 and the related departmental communications were liable to be disregarded or set aside?

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 benefit arising from a finally settled service-law determination cannot be denied to an identically placed employee merely because that employee was not a party to the original proceedings.

It relied on the Telangana High Court’s judgment dated 9 August 2024 in Union of India v. R. Siva Shankara Sastry, which upheld the CAT Hyderabad’s direction to grant the enhanced pay scale to Inspectors and Superintendents notionally from 1 January 1996; the related SLP was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 28 February 2025.

The Tribunal also relied on its own consistent decisions in similarly placed OAs, including OA No. 411/2025 dated 16 December 2025.

The governing principle was that similarly situated employees must receive equal treatment and that implementation of the judicially recognised benefit could not be restricted artificially to the original litigants.

The Tribunal found it undisputed that the respondents had already granted the enhanced pay scale from 1 January 1996 to other similarly placed officials pursuant to the judicial decisions referred to above.

The applicant’s service position was materially identical: she had worked as an Inspector during the relevant period and as a Superintendent thereafter.

Since the underlying issue had been settled through the Telangana High Court judgment, dismissal of the related SLP, and repeated CAT orders, the respondents’ reliance on the in personam character of earlier orders was held untenable.

Applying the principle of equal treatment, the Tribunal concluded that the applicant could not be denied the same notional benefit solely because she had approached the Tribunal separately.

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