Regularised NMR employees are governed by the pay scale expressly prescribed in the regularisation order.

The respondents were initially engaged as daily-wage Nominal Muster Roll (NMR) employees.

Their services were regularised under G.O.Ms.No.111, Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department, dated 29 September 2006, which prescribed the pay scales for the regularised categories, including Maintenance Assistants.

The respondents, who had SSLC and ITI qualifications, sought the pay scale applicable to Grade-I technical posts, relying on Board Proceedings No.505 dated 12 December 1986 and decisions concerning other employees.

The Board maintained that the respondents had been regularised in the pay scales specified in G.O.Ms.No.111 and had neither been directly recruited nor promoted to Grade-I posts.

The Single Judge allowed their writ petition; the Board appealed.

Whether the respondents, whose NMR services were regularised under G.O.Ms.No.111, were entitled to the pay scale applicable to Grade-I rather than the scale prescribed for their regularised posts.

Whether Board Proceedings No.505 or prior court orders granting Grade-I scales to other employees entitled the respondents to the same benefit.

G.O.Ms.No.111 prescribed the pay scales applicable to the categories of NMR employees whose services it regularised; where that order remained unchallenged, the prescribed scales governed those employees.

Under the applicable service rules, appointment to Grade-I technical posts was by direct recruitment or promotion.

The Court relied on A. Sundaram v. State of Tamil Nadu and Others, which cautioned against perpetuating erroneous individual orders as precedent.

State of Haryana v. Haryana Civil Secretariat Personal Staff Association, which recognised pay-scale fixation as an executive function warranting judicial restraint.

Judicial review may address an unjust or prejudicial decision that overlooks material facts, but courts should not themselves prescribe a particular pay scale.

The Court held that the respondents’ entitlement arose from their regularisation under G.O.Ms.No.111, which expressly fixed the scales for the relevant categories.

Their SSLC and ITI qualifications did not, by themselves, make them Grade-I appointees: they had entered regular service through NMR regularisation, not through direct recruitment or promotion to Grade-I.

Board Proceedings No.505 predated their regularisation by about twenty years and did not address the later policy-based regularisation under G.O.Ms.No.111.

Nor could earlier orders granting a benefit on the basis of unconsidered or erroneous facts require the Board to repeat the same error.

It held that the pay scales prescribed by G.O.Ms.No.111 governed their regularised service and that neither Board Proceedings No.505 nor prior orders concerning other employees justified Grade-I pay.

The writ appeal was allowed, the Single Judge’s order dated 17 October 2023 was set aside, and there was no order as to costs.