The Madhya Pradesh High Court (Jabalpur Bench) has held that, in cases where similarly situated employees have been granted relief by judicial orders which have attained finality, other similarly placed employees may seek similar relief by making representations to the competent authority, which must be decided expeditiously and in accordance with law, without the necessity of approaching the Court in every individual case.
The Court also suggested that the State Government should formulate a policy to resolve such disputes at the departmental level to avoid multiplicity of litigation. The Court directed the Competent Authority to decide the representations within 45 days by passing a reasoned and speaking order, and to communicate the outcome to the petitioners.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Vinay Saraf observed that matters in respect of transfer, pay scale, increment, promotion, seniority, regularization, classification, suspension, termination, seeking similar benefits etc. may be decided at the initial stage itself, which will save the time, money and energy of the employees.
The Bench noted that the State Government spends lot of money to defend these cases. In case the officers of the State Government are not available, the State Govt. may take the services of the retired District Judges also and appoint them in the different Departments to consider and decide the grievances of the employees.
Briefly, the petitioners approached the High Court seeking a direction to the respondents to grant them seniority from 01.09.2010 along with the difference of pay. The counsel for the petitioners relied upon an earlier order passed by a Coordinate Bench in W.P. No.20612 of 2018 (Nand Kishore Patel and Ors. vs. State of M.P. and Ors.) dated 16.04.2024, where, under similar circumstances, the Coordinate Bench directed the respondents to grant seniority and difference of pay from 01.09.2010.
Appearances:
Advocate Vasu Jain, for the Petitioners
Advocate Praveen Namdeo, for the Respondents/State
