HC to hear petition against 11th PRC tomorrow

Gazetted officers oppose new pay scales, seek stay on process

A view of the Andhra Pradesh High Court building at Nelapadu village.

The writ petition filed in the High Court by the AP Gazetted Officers’ Joint Action Committee chairman K.V. Krishnaiah against the government employees’ revised pay scales of 2022 notified through G.O. Ms. No. 1 on January 17 is listed for hearing by a Division Bench comprising Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and B.S. Bhanumathi on January 24.

Mr. Krishnaiah stated in the petition that the G.O. No. 1 is contrary to the provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 and the Constitution of India. He sought a direction to the respondents (Chief Secretary, Principal Secretaries - Finance and Revenue, PRC Commissioner and Secretary of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs) to notify the pay scales only after taking their representations into consideration in order to ensure that their salaries are protected by continuing the payment of existing emoluments like HRA.

Further, the petitioner argued that the revised pay scales were fixed with effect from July 1, 2018 and an absurd clause had been provided in the same notification, which says that pay fixations made contrary thereto, would be recovered. This is against the settled principles of administrative, employment and labour laws. The PRC recommendations and the findings of the Committee of Secretaries were neither analysed nor revealed to the employees, Mr. Krishnaiah stated.

Strike notice

Leaders of the employees’ associations have earlier announced their decision to go on strike from February 7 and to serve a notice to the Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma in a couple of days with the demand that the government should first cancel the impugned G.O. if it wanted to avert a showdown over the 11th Pay Revision Commission (PRC) recommendations. They maintained that the pay fixation will have an overall effect of reducing salaries instead of effecting an upward revision.

The Cabinet passed a resolution in its meeting on January 21 to proceed with the implementation of the said G.Os despite opposition from the employees. It, however, offered to negotiate with the employees, about which the latter raised doubts.