Himachal HC quashes grade pay equating promoted Health Educators with feeder post; higher pay from 01.10.2012, arrears from 15.09.2013
The question: Whether giving promoted Health Educators the same re-revised grade pay as the feeder post, and from a later date, was arbitrary and violated Articles 14 and 16
The Himachal Pradesh High Court, in a judgment by Justice Ranjan Sharma with Justice Vivek Singh Thakur on the bench, allowed a writ petition by Shashi Pal Thakur and 57 other Health Educators. It quashed the Notification dated 30.01.2016 to the extent it gave them Grade Pay of Rs 4200 from 01.02.2016, the same grade pay the lower feeder post of Male/Female Health Supervisors (later redesignated Multipurpose Health Supervisors) had received from 01.10.2012. The Court directed the State to give the petitioners a proportionally higher grade pay over and above Rs 4200 from 01.10.2012. The petitioners hold a promotional post. Under the Recruitment and Promotion Rules of 1999, 75% of Health Educator posts are filled by promotion from the Health Supervisor cadre and 25% by direct recruitment. Under the Revised Pay Rules of 2009 the Health Educators were placed in Rs 10300-34800 + 3800 GP from 01.01.2006, while the Health Supervisors got Rs 10300-34800 + 3600 GP. After the Himachal Pradesh Civil Services (Category/Post-wise Revised Pay) Rules, 2012, the Supervisors and 13 other Health Department categories were given Rs 10300-34800 + 4200 GP from 01.10.2012, and 26 categories in other departments were given the benefit from the same date, but the Health Educators were left behind. The petitioners represented to the State in 2014. An Expert Committee admitted an anomaly and recommended Rs 4200 GP prospectively, together with a change in the post's nomenclature from promotion to placement. The Cabinet approved this, and the Notification of 30.01.2016 followed. The claim was filed before the State Administrative Tribunal as Original Application No. 4590 of 2016 and, after the Tribunal's abolition, came to the High Court as CWPOA No. 8076 of 2019. Judgment was reserved on 16.06.2026 and pronounced on 08.10.2026.