HC upholds revised pay scale for lab technicians from April 2010

Dehradun: Uttarakhand high court has dismissed the state govt’s special appeal and upheld a single judge’s order granting lab technicians in the medical health and family welfare department a revised pay scale of ₹9,300–34,800 with grade pay ₹4,200, effective April 15, 2010.A division bench of Chief Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and Justice Subhash Upadhyay ruled on April 29 that the issue of pay parity had already been settled in earlier litigation and could not be reopened. The case stemmed from a dispute raised by two lab technicians, appointed in 1977 and 1989, who sought parity with X-ray technicians and dental hygienists.The court noted that under the 5th and 6th pay commissions, lab technicians and X-ray technicians shared the same scale, while dental hygienists were lower. Hygienists were upgraded from April 15, 2010, and X-ray technicians from Sept 1, 2010, but lab technicians were excluded.In a 2013 petition by lab technicians, the court had already quashed the finance secretary’s order of July 19, 2012, and the medical health department’s order of March 28, 2013, and directed grant of higher scale to lab technicians from April 15, 2010.That judgment found the state’s stand arbitrary, observing that no reasons were given for denying parity despite the earlier common pay structure and despite there being no case that the nature of lab technicians’ work had diminished or changed.Although the govt issued an order on April 17, 2015, granting the higher scale prospectively, the present respondents challenged that limitation. Rejecting the state’s argument that some lab technicians had accepted the benefit from April 17, 2015, the division bench held that an executive order could not override judicial direction.The court concluded that the respondents, who continued to contest the matter, were entitled to relief from April 15, 2010, distinguishing their case from those who accepted the govt’s prospective benefit.