Principle of Parity Precludes Selective Denial of Pay Commission Benefits to Similarly Situated Employees.

The respondents are retired employees of the Mahuva Municipality who filed a writ petition seeking the benefits of the 6th Pay Commission effective from 01.01.2006.

They based their claim on a prior judgment in SCA No. 3060 of 2015, where other employees of the same Municipality were granted these benefits from the same date.

The learned Single Judge allowed the petition, directing the Municipality to pay the benefits.

The Municipality appealed, contending that the 2015 judgment was "palpably incorrect" because the original prayer in that case only sought benefits from 01.01.2009.

The Municipality had already challenged the 2015 judgment through a Letters Patent Appeal and a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court, both of which were dismissed.

1. Whether the Municipality can deny 6th Pay Commission benefits to a specific set of employees while having already extended them to similarly situated employees under a court mandate.

2. Whether the claims of the respondents are barred by the doctrines of laches, delay, or acquiescence.

Article 14 of the Constitution of India, which prohibits discrimination and mandates that all similarly situated persons be treated alike.

State of Uttar Pradesh Ors. v. Arvind Kumar Srivastava Ors. (2015), establishing that when a court grants relief to a set of employees, the benefit must be extended to all identically situated persons unless they have "acquiesced" to the wrongful action or are "fence-sitters".

Union of India Ors. v. Tarsem Singh (2008) regarding the limitation of arrears to three years, noting it applies to belated claims against wrongful rejection, not lingering claims never addressed by the employer.

The Division Bench observed that since the 2015 judgment granting benefits from 01.01.2006 was affirmed by the Supreme Court, it reached finality for the Municipality's employees.

The court reasoned that denying the same benefit to the respondents would constitute a "direct assault on Article 14" because pay commission benefits, based on inflation and cost of living, must be applied uniformly across a cadre.

Regarding the Municipality’s plea of delay, the court found that the respondents’ claims were never rejected but remained "lingering from the very inception".

Consequently, there was no "acquiescence" or "fence-sitting" because the Municipality only became liable to extend the 2006 date once it suffered the adverse order in the 2015 litigation.

The court held that the Municipality cannot shield itself behind technicalities to avoid a settled liability.

The respondents are entitled to the 6th Pay Commission benefits from 01.01.2006.

The Municipality/Nagarpalika was directed to extend these benefits to the respondents within six weeks from the receipt of the order and all connected civil applications were disposed of accordingly.