STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: In a landmark judgment, the State High Court on Monday disposed of the petition filed by Secretaries to Chief Justice and Judges of the High Court, given equivalent grades of KAS as per SRO 386 of 2008.
Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey after hearing Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi with Advocate Veenu Gupta appearing for the petitioners namely Tarsem Arora, Anil Raina, Satinder Singh and Tassaduq Qadiri whereas AAG Ravinder Sharma appearing for the State whereas Advocate Munish Sharma appearing for the High Court, observed that the petitioners’ cadre is held entitled in all four posts of Secretaries in the Selection Grade of Rs.12,000-16,500 above the time scale of Rs.10,000-15,200 as envisaged by Rule 5(1)(iii) read with Rule 5(3) of the KAS Rules. Since two posts designated as Joint Registrars in the said scale of pay stand already sanctioned for promotion of the members of the said cadre, this leaves the deficiency of two posts in the said scale; three posts of the Secretaries in the Special Scale of Rs.14,300-18,300 as envisaged by Rule 5(1)(iv) read with Rule 5(2) of the KAS Rules and However, in terms of the Rule 5(1)(v) read with the second part of Rule 5(2), the petitioner’s cadre is held not to be entitled to any post in the Super Time Scale of Rs.18,400-22,400.
Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey further observed that the reliefs prayed for by the petitioners in this writ petition, as regards the prayer for treating their cadre as feeding service for induction into KAS, the same being ex facie antithetical to the constitutional scheme of things, it cannot be granted.
High Court further observed that in so far as the main relief prayed for by the petitioners is concerned, since respondent No.2 has referred the matter back to the Registrar General for formulating a scheme, I think, it would be appropriate to require the Registrar General of the High Court to formulate the requisite scheme, keeping in view the discussions and observations made together with what has been held in this judgment hereinabove, and forward the same to respondent No 2 within a period of ten days from today.
In the event the Registrar General feels that nothing more is required to be done than what has been discussed, observed and held in this judgment, he would be free to forward a copy of this judgment under the cover of his communication to Law Secretary for doing the needful.
The respondents shall, thereafter, consider the matter and take a decision thereon within a period of one month from the date of receipt of such communication from the Registrar General, in light of the concessions already made in the two communications. With these observations State High Court allowed the petition and directed Registrar Judicial to forthwith send a true copy of this judgment giving the full cause title of the case in the same manner as a certified copy of judgment is issued, to the Registrar General for his compliance.
In the petition, the petitioners, who are working as Secretaries, attached with the Chief Justice and the Judges of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, have filed this writ petition seeking, to put it in the simplistic terms, a writ of Mandamus to command the respondents to extend to them the benefits envisaged by the provisions of SRO 386 of 2008 dated 1st December, 2008 for their counter parts working in the Civil Secretariat of the State. JNF