Vikramsinh Bahdursinh Rana vs Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation

Gujarat High Court

Vikramsinh Bahdursinh Rana vs Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation on 29 July, 2025

                                                                                                                            NEUTRAL CITATION




                               C/SCA/6474/2019                                               ORDER DATED: 29/07/2025

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                                      IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD

                                        R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 6474 of 2019

                        ==========================================================
                                              VIKRAMSINH BAHDURSINH RANA & ORS.
                                                            Versus
                                              BHAVNAGAR MUNICIPAL CORPORATION
                        ==========================================================
                        Appearance:
                        CHINTAN K GANDHI & RAVAL& TRIVEDI ASSOCIATES, ADVOCATES for
                        the Petitioners
                        MR DEVANG BHATT for MR HS MUNSHAW(495) for the Respondent
                        ==========================================================

                          CORAM:HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE SANDEEP N. BHATT

                                                                Date : 29/07/2025

                                                                 ORAL ORDER

1. The present petition is filed by the petitioners with the following prayers.

" 10(b) This Hon'ble Court may be pleased to issue appropriate writ of mandamus and/or any other writ, order or direction to quash and set aside the impugned order dated 28.10.2010 passed by the Commissioner, Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation.

(c) This Hon'ble Court may be pleased to direct the respondent authority to avail the benefit of the 9-18-27 Scheme to the petitioners and also be pleased to direct the respondent to pay the amount of deference from the date of applicability of the said scheme with 12% Page 1 of 7 Uploaded by M.H. DAVE(HC00193) on Tue Jul 29 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Jul 30 01:25:17 IST 2025 NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/6474/2019 ORDER DATED: 29/07/2025 undefined interest.

(d) Be pleased to direct the respondent authority to revert back the amount which had been recovered pursuant to the impugned order dated 28.10.2010."

2. Heard learned advocates.

3. Considering the submissions made at the bar, now, the issue is required to be adjudicated by considering the judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court reported in (2022) 18 SCC 144 in the case of Rushibhai Jagdishchandra Pathak versus Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation, wherein identical order is under challenge passed by the State, but by the different department.

4. Further, considering the fact that the petitioner has approached the Court after a period of nine years.

Considering the observations made in the decision of the Hon'ble Apex Court, more particularly, paras : 15 to 17 thereof, which reproduced as under.

"15. We are also inclined to grant interest to the appellants on the arrears at the rate of 7% per annum, which would be payable with effect from 1st September 2017. We have fixed the said Page 2 of 7 Uploaded by M.H. DAVE(HC00193) on Tue Jul 29 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Jul 30 01:25:17 IST 2025 NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/6474/2019 ORDER DATED: 29/07/2025 undefined date for grant of interest as the respondent- Corporation has accepted the interpretation of the Scheme rendered on 16th August 2016 in the Writ Petition preferred by Mukeshbhai Jaswantrai Joshi. Normally, and as a model employer, on accepting the said decision, the respondent- Corporation should have uniformly applied and granted the benefit to all its similarly situated employees affected by the order dated 28th October 2010. This would have avoided unnecessary litigation before the courts, as was held in State of Uttar Pradesh and Others v. Arvind Kumar Srivastava and Others, (2015) 1 SCC 347:

"22.1. The normal rule is that when a particular set of employees is given relief by the court, all other identically situated persons need to be treated alike by extending that benefit. Not doing so would amount to discrimination and would be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. This principle needs to be applied in service matters more emphatically as the service jurisprudence evolved by this Court from time to time postulates that all similarly situated persons should be treated similarly. Therefore, the normal rule would be that merely because other similarly situated persons did not approach the Court earlier, they are not to be treated differently.

NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/6474/2019 ORDER DATED: 29/07/2025 undefined 22.2. However, this principle is subject to well recognised exceptions in the form of laches and delays as well as acquiescence. Those persons who did not challenge the wrongful action in their cases and acquiesced into the same and woke up after long delay only because of the reason that their counterparts who had approached the court earlier in time succeeded in their efforts, then such employees cannot claim that the benefit of the judgment rendered in the case of similarly situated persons be extended to them. They would be treated as fence-sitters and laches and delays, and/or the acquiescence, would be a valid ground to dismiss their claim.

22.3. However, this exception may not apply in those cases where the judgment pronounced by the court was judgment in rem with intention to give benefit to all similarly situated persons, whether they approached the court or not. With such a pronouncement the obligation is cast upon the authorities to itself extend the benefit thereof to all similarly situated persons. Such a situation can occur when the subject-matter of the decision touches upon the policy matters, like scheme of regularisation and the like (see K.C. Sharma v. Union of India). On the other hand, if the judgment of the court was in personam holding that benefit of the said judgment shall accrue to the parties before the court and such an intention Page 4 of 7 Uploaded by M.H. DAVE(HC00193) on Tue Jul 29 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Jul 30 01:25:17 IST 2025 NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/6474/2019 ORDER DATED: 29/07/2025 undefined is stated expressly in the judgment or it can be impliedly found out from the tenor and language of the judgment, those who want to get the benefit of the said judgment extended to them shall have to satisfy that their petition does not suffer from either laches and delays or acquiescence."

16. In view of the aforesaid discussion, the prayer of the appellants that they should be given arrears right from 2010 has to be rejected. We also reject the prayer of the appellants that they should be refunded the entire amount which had been collected by the respondent-Corporation in terms of the order dated 28th October 2010.

17. Recording the aforesaid, we partly allow the present appeals with a direction that the appellants would be entitled to arrears in the pre-revised pay-scale of Rs.5,000-8,000/- for three years prior to the date of filing of the Writ Petitions along with interest at the rate of 7% per annum with effect from 1st September 2017. The arrears, with interest, would be paid within a period of four months from the date of pronouncement of this judgment. A computation sheet/statement of accounts on the basis of which payment is made by the respondent-Corporation shall be furnished to the appellants. The impugned judgment is, accordingly, partly set Page 5 of 7 Uploaded by M.H. DAVE(HC00193) on Tue Jul 29 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Jul 30 01:25:17 IST 2025 NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/6474/2019 ORDER DATED: 29/07/2025 undefined aside and the Writ Petitions filed by the appellants would be treated as allowed in the aforesaid terms. There would be no order as to costs."

5. In view of above, the present petition is required to be allowed partly. Therefore, prayer of the petitioner that he should be given arrears cannot be granted beyond three years from filing of the petition. In view of above decision, it is also required to be rejected the prayer of the petitioner that he should be refunded the entire amount which is collected by the respondent pursuant to the impugned order.

6. Accordingly, this Court is of the opinion that this petition is required to be partly allowed with a direction that the petitioner is entitled to the arrears in pre-revised pay- scale 5500-9000 for three years prior to the date of filing of this petition along with interest at the rate of 7% per annum with effect from 01.09.2017. Order accordingly. The arrears, with interest, shall be paid within a period of four months from the date of this order. The computation sheet/statement of accounts on the basis of which payment is made by the respondent Corporation shall be furnished to the petitioners.

7. The impugned order is accordingly partly set aside and the present petition is allowed to the aforesaid extent.

NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/6474/2019 ORDER DATED: 29/07/2025 undefined There would be no order as to costs.

Direct service is permitted.

(SANDEEP N. BHATT,J) M.H. DAVE Page 7 of 7 Uploaded by M.H. DAVE(HC00193) on Tue Jul 29 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Jul 30 01:25:17 IST 2025