Identical duties warrant pay parity under the constitutional principle of equal pay for equal work.

The petitioners, working as Laboratory Attendants (re-designated as Senior Laboratory Attendants) in Government Schools and Colleges, sought a pay scale revision to Rs. 4400-7000 w.e.f. 01.01.1996, identical to the scale granted to Junior Lecturer Assistants (JLA)

While JLAs were granted the higher scale, Laboratory Attendants remained in the Rs. 3120-5160 scale

The petitioners contended that although JLA posts do not exist in schools, they perform duties identical to JLAs, including store management and stock maintenance

The respondents argued that pay scales are governed by Recruitment & Promotion (R&P) Rules (2000), and since the petitioners are Laboratory Attendants, they cannot claim a scale prescribed for a different cadre (College Cadre JLAs)

However, the court noted that both categories belong to a common seniority list and are inter-transferable

The court relied on the constitutional mandate of "equal pay for equal work" as a derivative of Articles 14, 16, and 39(d) of the Constitution of India, characterizing it as a fundamental right rather than a mere slogan

It applied the precedent in Randhir Singh v. Union of India (1982), which established that this principle is attainable through constitutional remedies

While acknowledging K.T. Veerappa v. State of Karnataka (2006) and Punjab State Power Corporation Limited v. Rajesh Kumar Jindal (2019), which hold that pay fixation is an executive function, the court emphasized that judicial intervention is warranted when such decisions are unreasonable, unjust, or prejudicial to a section of employees

The court observed that the nature of duties performed by the petitioners in schools was indistinguishable from those performed by JLAs in colleges

Evidence showed that school Laboratory Attendants were made in-charge of stores and required to maintain stock registers—duties specifically assigned to the JLA category

The court noted that because JLA posts were absent in the school cadre, the petitioners were effectively fulfilling those roles without corresponding compensation

Despite the respondents' reliance on R&P Rules, the court found that the wholesale identity of duties, combined with a common seniority list and the inter-transferability of the posts, rendered the pay disparity discriminatory

The court concluded that when qualifications, responsibilities, and functions are identical, treating employees differently based solely on department or nomenclature is irrational

The court directed the respondents to grant the pay scale of Rs. 4400-7000 to the petitioners effective 01.01.1996 on a notional basis

Actual monetary benefits were ordered to be paid for the period starting three years prior to the filing of the petition, with arrears to be cleared within three months

No order was made as to costs