Supreme Court: Staff and pensioners cannot have different DA pay hikes

New Delhi: Observing that there is no difference between inflationary pressure on active employees and pensioners and the impact is equal on both, Supreme Court Friday held that determining the differential rate of increase in these two categories of inflation-linked benefits is arbitrary and cannot be allowed. A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Prasanna B Varale disagreed with the Kerala government’s decision to increase the living allowance (DA) of state-run road transport company employees by 14 per cent, while the living allowance (DR) of retired employees of the company was increased by only 11 per cent. “…the relevant government orders have increased the DA rate by 14% and the DR rate by 11%, although the increase is with a common objective of alleviating the hardship faced by serving employees and pensioners due to inflation. There is no doubt that inflation hits both active and retired employees equally… We believe that distinguishing the two as growth rates for DA and DR has no reasonable link to the objectives sought to be achieved. ” Justice Mishra said while accepting the plea of ​​senior advocates V Chitambaresh and Vipin Nair. The state claims that active and retired employees belong to different categories and that differential treatment of them does not violate the right to equality. Financial reasons alone justified this, it said. The judges said, “There is no doubt that financial austerity may be a guiding factor in deferring the payment of certain benefits or may be a valid reason for implementing separate welfare schemes. However, once it is decided to provide certain allowances and to increase these allowances… fixing a higher growth rate for serving persons than for retired persons would be arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.”“