Can re-employed pensioners holding a post such as Presiding Officer of a Central Government Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court be classified separately from regularly serving officers for the purpose of pay fixation, without offending Article 14 of the Constitution?

Yes. Article 14 prohibits class legislation but does not prohibit reasonable classification for legitimate purposes, and since re-employed officers cease to be homogeneous with the class of regularly serving officers upon re-employment, classifying them separately for pay structure and pay fixation, on the basis of a rational and intelligible differentia, satisfies the Equality Clause and does not require parity with the pay scales granted to regular officers.

Pay fixation — Executive function — Limited judicial review — Article 14 — Reasonable classification — Re-employed pensioners — 6th Pay Commission — Pay fixation — Executive function — Limited judicial review — Held: Pay fixation is an executive function, and courts are not suited to evaluate and compare, on the basis of affidavits and pleadings, the justifiability of a differentiation in pay scales, such matters being best left to the executive; unless mala fides are shown, the fixation of pay scales by expert bodies or Pay Commissions is entitled to be respected, and judicial review in matters of classification of posts and determination of pay scale is very limited since the equation of posts and salaries is a complex matter best left to an expert body. (¶5, 6.5) Article 14 — Reasonable classification — Re-employed pensioners a separate class — Held further: Article 14 prohibits class legislation but does not prohibit reasonable classification for the purposes of legislation, and classifying re-employed persons separately from regularly serving officers for the purpose of pay structure and pay fixation, on the basis of a rational and intelligible differentia, satisfies the Equality Clause read with Article 16; re-employed officers cease to be homogeneous vis-a-vis the class of regular officers upon re-employment and can accordingly be denied parity with the pay scales granted to regularly employed officers. (¶6)

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