HC frowns on Utkal for denying pay scale to staffer

Cuttack: Orissa high court on Friday slammed Utkal University for making an employee discharge the duties of a higher post for 16 years without giving him commensurate pay.
The single-judge bench of Justice Sashikanta Mishra said, “This is absolutely iniquitous and cannot be countenanced in law. Had it been a stop-gap arrangement for a limited period also, the matter would have been different.But here is a case where the petitioner has been made to work in the higher post for as long as 16 years.”
“Thus, the authorities are found to have displayed an ad hoc attitude, whereby an employee was made to work in a higher post without being paid the pay scale attached to it. Obviously, a public institution like Utkal University cannot be expected to adopt such an approach to the detriment of its employees,” Justice Mishra observed.
Justice Mishra made the observation while considering the case of Subhankar Das who was recruited as a computer operator in the computer centre of the university on Sept 1,1990. He was appointed as a programmer from Oct 1, 1996.
Upon the retirement of the system manager of the centre, Das was made in-charge system manager from Feb 26, 2005. But he was not promoted and not given the pay scale till he retired on June 30, 2021.
The court directed the university authorities to grant the pay scale of the post of system manager to Das from the date he was made in-charge till the date of his retirement. His last pay drawn should be fixed and his pension and other benefits, if any, be also revised accordingly.