Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 29: In a landmark judgment, State High Court today held Secretaries to Chief Justice and Judges entitled to grades equivalent to the KAS officers.
This judgment was delivered by Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey while disposing of the petition filed by Secretaries attached with Chief Justice and Judges of the High Court, seeking benefits envisaged by the provisions of SRO 386 of 2008 dated December 1, 2008 for their counterparts working in the Civil Secretariat of the State.
After hearing Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi with Advocate Veena Gupta for the petitioners and AAG Ravinder Sharma for the State and Advocate Munish Sharma appearing for the High Court, Justice Magrey observed, “the KAS Rules provide the scheme talked about by the Law Department in its communication addressed to Registrar General of High Court following the directions of this court”.
“I think, it was unnecessary to require the Registrar General to frame any scheme in this regard. The Government could have itself done the needful on the basis of the scheme of the KAS Rules read with the decisions already rendered by the courts in various writ petitions on the subject. More so, in view of the fact that petitioners’ cadre stands already granted Time Scale envisaged by the KAS Rules”, Justice Magrey said, adding “two other scales could be released in continuation to the earlier Government order whereby these posts had been created by adding a proviso”.
With these observations, Justice Magrey held petitioners’ cadre entitled to in all four posts of Secretaries in the Selection Grade of Rs 12000-16500 above the Time scale of Rs 10000-15200 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 cadre, this leaves the deficiency of 2 posts in the scale”, the court said and held three posts of the Secretaries entitled in the Special Scale of Rs 14300-18300 as envisaged by Rule 5(1)(iv) read with Rule 5(2) of the KAS Rules.
“However, in terms of the Rule 5(1)(v) read with the second part of Rule 5(2), the petitioners’ cadre is not entitled to any post in the Super Time Scale of Rs 18400-22400”, the court said, adding “as far as prayer for treating their cadre as feeding service for induction into KAS is concerned, the same being ex facie antithetical to the constitutional scheme of things, it cannot be granted”.
Justice Magrey further said, “in so far as the main relief prayed for by the petitioners is concerned, since Law Department 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 and forward the same to Law Department within a period of 10 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 Department for doing the needful”, High Court said, adding “the respondents shall, thereafter, consider the matter and take a decision 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”.
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