Senior employees are entitled to pay stepping-up parity with juniors under the governing precedent.

The applicant, a retired Superintendent of Central Tax, sought to quash the order dated 16 October 2024 and the Department of Revenue’s instruction dated 10 April 2023 treating the Karnataka High Court’s judgment in C.R. Madhava Murthy v. Union of India as confined to the parties in that case. He also sought stepping up of his pay to match his junior, with consequential pensionary benefits.

The Tribunal noted that the issue had been considered in R.S. Venkataram v. Union of India, OA No. 69/2023 and connected matters, decided on 20 December 2024.

Whether the applicant was entitled to pay stepping-up parity with his junior, together with consequential benefits, in light of the decisions in C.R. Madhava Murthy and R.S. Venkataram.

Whether the applicant’s claim was defeated by the ACP/MACP provisions treating financial upgradation as personal to the employee and by the respondents’ contention that Madhava Murthy applied only to its parties.

The applicant invoked Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, and relied on Articles 14, 16 and 141 of the Constitution.

The Tribunal followed the Karnataka High Court’s judgment in C.R. Madhava Murthy v. Union of India, W.P. Nos. 33038–33039/2016, upheld by the Supreme Court in Union of India v. C.R. Madhava Murthy, Civil Appeal Nos. 2087–2088 of 2022, (2022) 6 SCC 183; the review petitions were dismissed on 21 February 2023.

It also applied its decision in R.S. Venkataram, which had directed pay stepping-up notwithstanding the respondents’ reliance on the ACP/MACP provisions concerning the personal nature of financial upgradations.

The relief in R.S. Venkataram was expressly made subject to the decisions in specified pending SLPs.

The Tribunal treated the applicant’s claim as materially covered by its decision in R.S. Venkataram, which had considered the respondents’ arguments regarding the ACP/MACP provisions and the asserted personam effect of Madhava Murthy.

Finding no reason to depart from that decision, and relying on uniformity and consistency in judicial decisions, it extended the same relief to the applicant.

The Tribunal did not separately determine the validity of the challenged 2023 instruction or 2024 order; it disposed of the application in accordance with its earlier decision.

That decision directed pay stepping-up to the level of the respective junior, with arrears up to retirement and consequential benefits, and provided for repayment of any recovery already made; the relief remained subject to the outcome of the specified pending SLPs.

No order was made as to costs.