JAMMU: Compelling an employee to discharge the responsibilities of a higher post while paying him a lower salary amounts to workplace exploitation, which is impermissible in law, Jammu & Kashmir high court ruled.A division bench comprising Chief Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati and Justice Rajesh Sekhri made the observations while dismissing J&K govt’s appeal against a single bench order granting substantive promotion and consequential benefits to a municipal employee.The petitioner, Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh, was engaged as a daily wager in Sopore municipal council in 1980, and his services were regularised in 1988.In his petition, Sheikh said while his similarly situated colleague, Khazir Mohammad Shah, was promoted as jamadar/sanitary supervisor in 1994, he was denied the promotion despite having been regularised in the same year.He subsequently approached the high court, which in 1999 directed the authorities to consider his claim for promotion. However, the direction was not implemented in letter and spirit.Allowing Sheikh’s petition on May 2, 2023, the single bench held that he should be deemed substantively appointed and promoted as sanitary supervisor from April 28, 2005, with all consequential benefits.
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Sheikh had been performing the duties of jamadar/sanitary supervisor since June 2000, initially in his own pay and grade and subsequently with charge allowance from April 28, 2005.The UT administration challenged the verdict before the division bench, contending that merely performing the duties of a higher post did not confer any right to substantive promotion or the corresponding pay scale.Rejecting the govt’s contentions, the bench said although an employee ordinarily cannot claim the pay scale of a higher post merely because he has performed its duties, an exception exists where the employee has been formally ordered to discharge the responsibilities of that post.The division bench found no illegality or impropriety in the single bench order and upheld its directions.
