Equal Pay For Equal Work For Temporary Workers: A Note On Jagjit Singh Judgment

Judgement delivered by the Supreme Court in the case of State of Punjab and others V/s Jagjit Singh and others in civil appeal no. If one is to analyse the judgement in my mind two issues arises which are as under; The appointment of Ad hoc and Casual employees or Contractual Employees,who wants to get the benefit of a regular employee,in the entire judgement has relation to one issue namely whether the said employees who are employed to do certain work and for which work in the scheme of things, already there exists some Permanent employees or a sanctioned post which is not filled up or is kept vacant and if the said Permanent employees or sanctioned post has a fixed pay-scale, is eligible to get the benefit of those Permanent Employees Therefore, it is clear that the employees so appointed on an Ad hoc basis has to have a relation with a permanent post which is already is in existence, then only the Temporary employees can claim for the benefits accruing to an Permanent Employee. The honourable Supreme Court after exhaustive analysis of all the decided cases laid out the principles of law for equal pay for equal work as under; Principle involved: ‘Equal pay for equal work’ would be applicable to all the concerned temporary employees, so as to vest in them the right to claim wages, at par with the minimum of the pay-scale of regularly engaged Government employees, holding the same post. Persons holding the same rank/designation, but having dissimilar powers, duties and responsibilities, can be placed in different scales of pay, and cannot claim the benefit of the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’.) The principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ is applicable only when it is shown, that the incumbents of the subject post and the reference post, discharge similar duties and responsibilities.