Similarly situated employees are entitled to enhanced pay scales notionally from 1 January 1996.

The applicant, a retired Superintendent of Central GST and Customs, challenged the respondents’ rejection dated 23.07.2026 of his request for grant of the enhanced pay scale from 01.01.1996 instead of 21.04.2004.

The rejection relied upon CBIC communications dated 25.07.2023 and 04.08.2025, which stated that the Department of Expenditure had not agreed to extending the benefit and that earlier Tribunal orders had been implemented only in personam.

The applicant contended that the issue had already been settled in favour of similarly situated Inspectors, Preventive Officers, Examiners and Superintendents through orders of the CAT Hyderabad Bench, the Telangana High Court and dismissal of the Department’s SLP by the Supreme Court.

The respondents had granted the enhanced pay scale notionally from 01.01.1996 to other similarly placed officials, but denied the applicant the same benefit.

The applicant had served as an Inspector from 19.07.2001 to 21.04.2004 and was held to be similarly situated to the beneficiaries of the earlier decisions.

Whether the applicant, being similarly situated to officials who had received the enhanced pay scale, was entitled to equal treatment and grant of the revised scale notionally from 01.01.1996.

Whether the respondents could deny the benefit by treating the earlier Tribunal orders as applicable only in personam.

Whether the rejection order dated 23.07.2026 and the related CBIC communications were liable to be disregarded or set aside.

The Tribunal exercised jurisdiction under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985.

It applied the principle of equality and equal treatment among similarly situated government employees, holding that a benefit flowing from an adjudicated service-law issue should not ordinarily be confined only to the named litigants where the claimant is identically placed.

The Tribunal relied on the CAT Hyderabad decision in OA No. 1089/2019 and connected matters, the Telangana High Court judgment dated 09.08.2024 in Union of India v. R. Siva Shankara Sastry, and the Supreme Court’s dismissal of SLP (Civil) Diary No. 59005/2024 dated 28.02.2025, by which the direction to grant the enhanced pay scale notionally from 01.01.1996 attained finality.

It also followed consistent orders of the CAT Ahmedabad Bench granting the same benefit to similarly placed employees and relied on the order in OA No. 411/2025 dated 16.12.2025, stated to have been upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Tribunal found that the applicant was undisputedly similarly placed because he had held the post of Superintendent and had worked as an Inspector during the relevant period from 19.07.2001 to 21.04.2004.

Since the respondents had already extended the enhanced pay-scale benefit from 01.01.1996 notionally to other officials pursuant to the final judicial decisions, denying the same benefit to the applicant solely because he was not an original party to those proceedings was inconsistent with the principle of equal treatment.

The respondents’ reliance on the in personam implementation of earlier orders was therefore held untenable, particularly as the underlying issue had been repeatedly decided in favour of similarly situated Group ‘B’ officers.

The Tribunal consequently directed reconsideration and extension of the benefit without being influenced by the rejection order dated 23.07.2026.

The Tribunal directed the respondents to extend to the applicant, on a notional basis from 01.01.1996, the benefit of the enhanced pay scale with consequential benefits, in light of the order in OA No. 411/2025 dated 16.12.2025 and the binding judicial decisions referred to therein, without relying upon the rejection order dated 23.07.2026.

The respondents were expected to implement the direction preferably within 60 days from receipt of the certified copy of the order and communicate the decision to the applicant.