Historical Pay Parity Between Non-Secretariat and Secretariat Services Cannot Be Arbitrarily Severed Post-Pay Commission Recommendations

The respondents, serving as Private Secretaries (PS), Personal Assistants (PA), and Assistants in the Indian Coast Guard (ICG), sought pay parity with their counterparts in the Central Secretariat Services (CSS) and Armed Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) following the 6th Central Pay Commission (CPC) recommendations.

Historically, these posts maintained pay parity across the 3rd, 4th, and 5th CPCs.

While the 6th CPC upgraded pay scales for Secretariat Services, the same was denied to ICG staff by the Department of Expenditure (DOE) and Ministry of Defence (MOD), despite internal recommendations for parity.

The respondents approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in OA 1707/2019, which ruled in their favor, leading to this writ petition by the Union.

1. Whether Private Secretaries, Personal Assistants, and Assistants in the Indian Coast Guard are entitled to maintain historical pay parity with the CSS/AFHQ cadres post-6th CPC.

2. Whether the benefit of the judgment in Kaushik Paik v. Union of India could be extended to the respondents despite them not being parties to that specific litigation.

The court primarily relied on the principle of "historical parity," noting that if duties and recruitment rules are similar, a breaking of parity by a Pay Commission must be based on a distinct rationale.

It applied the precedent from Kaushik Paik v. Union of India (2013), which held that ICG Section Officers were entitled to Secretariat-grade pay scales because the CPC recommendations intended to preserve existing relativities.

Furthermore, it cited Union of India v. DGOF Employees Association (2023), where the Supreme Court affirmed that historical similarity in pay scales must be respected to avoid discrimination under Article 14 of the Constitution.

The Court observed that the 6th CPC recommendations, specifically paragraph 3.1.9, intended for pay upgrades to apply mutatis mutandis to Private Secretaries and equivalent posts in services that had "established parity" with the CSS.

The Court rejected the Petitioner's argument that the respondents were ineligible because they were not parties to the Kaushik Paik case, holding that the legal principle regarding ICG's historical parity was already settled.

The Bench noted that the duties, recruitment rules, and hierarchical structures of PSs, PAs, and Assistants in the ICG were analogous to the Section Officers already granted relief; it further highlighted the Petitioner’s own internal correspondence seeking parity as an admission that the disparity was unjustified.

Relief was restricted to arrears from three years prior to the filing of the OA (28.05.2019), without interest, provided payment is made within eight weeks; otherwise, 12% interest per annum shall apply.