Supreme Court’s order on equal post-equal salary: MP High Court’s decision dismissed; Bench Bid – Post and work may be same, salary cannot be same

The Supreme Court has set aside a decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on equal post-equal pay. A bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari observed that an employee cannot claim equality of salary with another employee merely because of similar post, nature or work. The matter was related to Madhya Pradesh State Vs Seema Sharma.

According to the Bench, the concept of equal pay can be applicable only if the employees are kept in equal conditions in all respects. Salary cannot be equalized only by having same post, same work and same quantity of work.

Librarian had demanded salary under UGC rules
The matter is related to Seema Sharma of Government Dhanwantri Ayurvedic College, Ujjain, who was appointed Librarian cum Museum Assistant. After 8 years of service, Seema claimed to be paid the same salary as the colleges of the Higher Education Department. The state did not accept it, so Seema approached the High Court under the Madhya Pradesh Education Services (Collegiate Branch) Recruitment Rules, 1990 (“The 1990 Rules”).

State authority filed petition in Supreme Court
The Madhya Pradesh High Court directed Seema to comply with the UGC norms for paying salary like a librarian of colleges under the Higher Education Department. The state authority’s intra-court appeal was rejected, so the authorities reached the Supreme Court. Allowing the appeal of the state and setting aside the order of the High Court, the bench said- Salary fixation is a matter of policy. Courts can intervene only in rare cases where there is discrimination between two sets of employees appointed to the same tribunal.

That’s why Seema Sharma cannot get equal pay
The Madhya Pradesh government had appealed to the Supreme Court that the 1990 rules were never applicable to the respondent. The 1990 rules were applicable to institutions under the Higher Education Department and the college where Sharma was posted was under the Department of AYUSH, Government of Madhya Pradesh, not the Higher Education Department.

There is no such provision in the rules applicable to the institutions under the Department of AYUSH which makes the UGC pay scale applicable to the employees of the institutes.