The Supreme Court has ruled that employees cannot claim equal pay simply because they perform identical or similar duties. The court said that pay parity must be assessed on a wider set of factors, including qualifications, experience, recruitment procedures, responsibilities and accountability attached to the job.
A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu observed that the principle of “equal pay for equal work” cannot be applied mechanically. According to the court, employees seeking pay parity must establish broad equality in all relevant aspects of their employment.
The judgment came in a dispute involving junior higher secondary school teachers working in government-aided schools in Kerala. The teachers had been directly recruited under a 1998 government order and sought the same full-time pay scale and allowances received by teachers of the same cadre who had entered the higher secondary schools through transfer or promotion.
The directly recruited teachers argued that their qualifications, duties and responsibilities were similar to those of the transferred and promoted teachers. However, the Supreme Court rejected their claim for pay parity, holding that the two groups could not be treated as equivalent in terms of experience.
The court explained that the source of recruitment, educational qualifications, professional experience, the process through which an appointment was made and the nature of duties and accountability can all be relevant when determining whether two groups of employees should receive the same pay.
The bench also referred to the development of the constitutional principle of equal pay. It noted that the doctrine had initially been viewed as a broad principle aimed at preventing exploitation, particularly in the context of Articles 14 and 39(d) of the Constitution. Over time, however, the courts have developed a more detailed test for determining whether pay differences are justified.
The Supreme Court said that even employees holding the same post and performing similar work may receive different pay if there are genuine differences in factors such as responsibility, reliability, confidentiality, qualifications or experience. Any such distinction, however, must be reasonable, bona fide and connected to the objective behind the classification.
In the Kerala case, the court found that teachers who had been transferred or promoted had greater experience, which provided a valid basis for the difference in pay. The court noted that the higher benefits also preserved the full-time status and benefits they had received before their promotion.
The Supreme Court reiterated that constitutional courts can intervene in cases involving unequal pay, but only after examining all relevant circumstances. Where there is complete parity in the factors governing employment and the work is of equal value, an employee may seek appropriate relief.
However, where material differences exist in recruitment, qualifications, experience or responsibilities, identical duties alone may not be sufficient to establish a right to equal pay.
The court ultimately dismissed the appeals filed by the directly recruited teachers and upheld the earlier Kerala High Court decision denying them pay parity with the transferred and promoted teachers.
Reader Comments 0