Uttarakhand HC Dismisses Health Workers' Claim for Grade Pay of Rs. 2800, Upholds 2013 Government Order

Health Workers appointed after 2013 cannot claim Grade Pay of Rs. 2800 given to pre-2013 colleagues under a court judgment, the Uttarakhand High Court has held.

The High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital has dismissed a batch of writ petitions filed by Health Workers (Female) employed in the State's Medical and Health Department, who sought Grade Pay of Rs. 2800 at par with colleagues appointed before 2 May 2013. Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari, sitting singly, held that the differential pay treatment rests on an intelligible differentia — the earlier group's Grade Pay was revised pursuant to a judgment of the Allahabad High Court, while the petitioners were appointed with full knowledge that the post carried Grade Pay of Rs. 2000. The court declined to interfere with the Government Order dated 02.05.2013 or with Appendix-B of the Recruitment Rules, 2016, finding no hostile discrimination and no occasion for judicial intervention in executive pay-fixation.

The Dispute Before the Court

The petitioners were appointed as Health Worker (Female) in different years following advertisements issued in 2016, 2018, 2022 and 2024. Each advertisement stated plainly that the post carried Pay Scale of Rs. 5200–20200 (Pay Band-1), Grade Pay Rs. 2000. Appointment letters were issued on those terms and the petitioners joined service accordingly.

After serving for some years, the petitioners discovered that a section of Health Workers were drawing Grade Pay of Rs. 2800. On inquiry, it emerged that only those appointed up to 2013 received the higher Grade Pay. The petitioners contended that since they held the same qualifications and discharged identical duties, paying them a lower Grade Pay amounted to hostile discrimination violating Article 14 and Article 16 of the Constitution.

The lead petition was Writ Petition No. 937 of 2025 (SS) filed by Mrs. Sudha Pandey and others. Ten connected writ petitions raising the same questions were heard together and decided by a common judgment.

Origin of the Pay Differential

The court traced the pay differential to Writ Petition No. 15904 of 1983 (Shiv Charan Lal Kushwaha and another v. State of U.P. and others) filed by Health Workers in the erstwhile State of Uttar Pradesh. That petition was decided in the employees' favour. Pursuant to the Allahabad High Court's judgment, a Pay Anomaly Committee was constituted and, on its recommendation, the State Government revised the Grade Pay of Health Workers vide Government Order dated 16.07.2010.

A subsequent Government Order dated 02.05.2013 modified the earlier order. It approved release of the salary difference to persons covered by the Allahabad High Court judgment and directed that the revised Grade Pay of Rs. 2800 be given to them as personal pay. The same order, however, provided that future appointments on the post of Health Worker would be made in the scale of Rs. 5200–20200, Grade Pay Rs. 2000. The Recruitment Rules notified on 26.07.2016 reflected this position in Appendix-B.

The petitioners challenged both the Government Order dated 02.05.2013 and the relevant entries in Appendix-B of the 2016 Recruitment Rules as arbitrary, illegal and violative of Articles 14, 16, 38(2) and 39(d) of the Constitution.

Arguments on Each Side

Senior Counsel for the petitioners relied on the Supreme Court's decisions in Dhirendra Chamoli and another v. State of U.P., (1986) 1 SCC 637, and Mew Ram Kanojia v. All India Institute of Medical Sciences and others, (1989) 2 SCC 235, for the proposition that persons performing the same duties with the same qualifications cannot be paid differently. He also cited the Supreme Court's judgment dated 10.03.2025 in Anurag Krishna Sinha v. State of Bihar and Another (Civil Appeal No. 13581 of 2025) on the equality guarantee under Article 14. He further argued that once the State upgraded the pay scale in 2010, it was obliged to extend that benefit to all Health Workers, and that the petitioners had a legitimate expectation of receiving Grade Pay of Rs. 2800.

The State, through Standing Counsel Mr. Narayan Dutt, offered a different framing. The Grade Pay of Rs. 2800 was not a revision of the post's pay scale; it was personal pay granted to a specific group in compliance with a court judgment. The post of Health Worker continued to carry Grade Pay of Rs. 2000. The State pointed to two practical constraints: first, there are 2306 sanctioned posts of Health Worker (Female) and 855 posts of Health Worker (Male), and extending the higher Grade Pay to all future appointees would impose a substantial financial burden; second, Grade Pay of Rs. 2800 is also the scale for Health Supervisor, the promotional post above Health Worker, and collapsing the pay differential between the feeder post and the promotional post would create structural problems.

The State relied on S.C. Chandra and others v. State of Jharkhand and others, (2007) 8 SCC 279, Punjab State Electricity Board and Another v. Thana Singh and Others, (2019) 4 SCC 113, and State of Madhya Pradesh v. R.D. Sharma and others, (2022) 13 SCC 320, for the settled position that fixation of pay scales is a primary executive function and courts should exercise judicial restraint. It also relied on Union of India and others v. Arun Kumar Roy, (1986) 1 SCC 675, for the proposition that a government servant's service conditions are governed by statutory rules, not by the terms of the original contract of appointment.

How the Court Reasoned

Justice Tiwari accepted the State's position on each of the principal grounds.

On the question of classification, the court held that Health Workers in service before 02.05.2013 and those appointed after that date constitute two distinct groups. The earlier group's Grade Pay was revised as a direct consequence of the Allahabad High Court's judgment in Writ Petition No. 15904 of 1983. The petitioners are not covered by that judgment. The court found that this historical reason supplies an intelligible differentia and that the classification has a reasonable nexus with the object sought to be achieved.

The court rejected the charge of hostile discrimination. It observed that the Government Order dated 02.05.2013 treats all Health Workers who were in service on that date as a single homogeneous class by granting them Grade Pay of Rs. 2800 as personal pay. No distinction is drawn within that group. The higher Grade Pay is simply not extended to future appointees. That, the court held, is not arbitrary.

On the equal pay argument, the court applied the line of Supreme Court authority holding that “equal pay for equal work” is not a fundamental right but a constitutional goal. It noted that the principle requires complete and wholesale identity between the two groups, and that even where duties are similar, differences in mode of appointment, historical context and other factors can justify differential pay. The court found that the petitioners had not established the complete identity required.

The court also addressed the financial dimension. With over 3,000 sanctioned posts of Health Worker and nearly 900 posts of Health Supervisor, extending Grade Pay of Rs. 2800 to all future appointees would have imposed a significant recurring liability on the State. The court held that the State was entitled to take this into account when structuring the pay revision.

On the estoppel point, the court noted that the petitioners applied for posts whose advertisements clearly stated Grade Pay of Rs. 2000, accepted appointment on those terms, and served for several years without objection. Their belated challenge to the pay scale was, in the court's view, unsustainable on this ground as well.

Regarding Appendix-B of the 2016 Recruitment Rules, the court found no infirmity. Appendix-B prescribes Grade Pay of Rs. 2000 for Health Worker and Grade Pay of Rs. 2800 for Health Supervisor uniformly, without drawing any distinction among Health Workers inter se. The personal pay of Rs. 2800 payable to pre-2013 Health Workers operates outside Appendix-B, as a consequence of the court judgment. The Rules were framed before the petitioners were appointed and the petitioners accepted appointment under them.

Outcome

Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari dismissed all eleven writ petitions by a common judgment delivered on 16 June 2026. The challenge to Government Order dated 02.05.2013 and to Appendix-B of the Recruitment Rules applicable to the post of Health Worker/Health Supervisor was rejected. No relief was granted to the petitioners.