Similarly situated MES employees are entitled to the ₹5,000 annual dress allowance from July 2017.

The applicants, civilian employees of the Military Engineer Services (MES), sought Dress Allowance of ₹5,000 per year from 1 July 2017 under the Government of India memoranda dated 2 August 2017 and 31 August 2017, together with consequential benefits and interest.

They relied on the Tribunal’s decision in *Birbal and Others v. Union of India and Others*, O.A. No. 278/2023, dated 22 July 2024, which had granted similar relief to MES employees. The respondents opposed the claim on grounds considered in that earlier decision, including the treatment of protective clothing and washing allowance.

Whether the applicants, as MES employees, were entitled to Dress Allowance of ₹5,000 per year from 1 July 2017 under the Government memoranda.

Whether the Tribunal should follow its earlier decision granting the same benefit to similarly situated MES employees.

Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, provides the basis for an application before the Tribunal.

The Ministry of Finance Office Memorandum dated 2 August 2017 and the DoPT Office Memorandum dated 31 August 2017 provided for a composite Dress Allowance, including the subsumption of specified uniform-related allowances; the earlier Tribunal decision also noted that special clothing would continue to be provided under existing norms. The Tribunal relied on *Birbal and Others v. Union of India and Others*, O.A. No. 278/2023, dated 22 July 2024, which followed the Chandigarh Bench’s decision in O.A. No. 1228/2019 and held that eligible MES employees were entitled to the allowance and that any recovery of it was unsustainable.

The Tribunal considered the present claim covered by its decision in *Birbal*, which addressed the same Dress Allowance issue for similarly situated MES employees.

It noted that the earlier decision had granted the allowance and that the respondents had complied with it; accordingly, the Tribunal held that it should not take a divergent view on the same issue. It therefore applied the earlier decision to the present applicants, without separately reconsidering the underlying dispute.

The pending M.A.s were also disposed of, and no order as to costs was made.