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Jharkhand News: A very big and relief news has come out from Jharkhand High Court for cooperative extension officials. The court has given an important decision on Wednesday on the petition filed demanding increase in grade pay of these officials. After this decision, the way has been cleared for the cooperative extension officers of the state to get increased pay scale. After hearing the matter in detail, the single bench of Justice Deepak Roshan of the High Court has issued clear instructions to the state government to increase the grade pay of the employees from 4200 to 4600. The court has considered the old stand of the government as completely unfair.

Comparison with Bihar and court’s comment

During the hearing of this case, the court has said very strict and important things in its order. The High Court clearly said that the officers working on exactly the same posts in Bihar are already getting the benefit of higher pay scale. In such a situation, keeping the employees of Jharkhand away from this benefit and depriving them of it is completely unfair and discriminatory behavior. The court believed that such double standards with employees cannot be accepted under any circumstances. For this reason the court gave its verdict in favor of the employees.

Arguments and sides of the petitioners

This entire matter was to a petition filed by Cooperative Extension officials. Senior advocates Manoj Tandon and Siddharth Ranjan strongly presented their case on behalf of the applicants in the court. The lawyers informed the court that the Bihar government had increased the pay scale of Cooperative Extension officers long ago, i.e. in the year 2017 itself, to 4600 grade pay. Along with this, the Central Government has also provided the same level of pay scale to all the employees of supervisory and supervisory cadre. Despite this, the Jharkhand government had not yet taken any positive decision on this subject, which was wrong.

Logic and old history of state division

During the hearing, some important facts also came before the court which proved to be very decisive in this case. The court was told that five out of the seven officials who filed this petition were appointed when Bihar had not been divided. Commenting on this, the court said that if the state had not been divided, then all these employees would have naturally got the same benefits which the officers working in Bihar are getting today. Therefore, giving lower pay scale to these employees just because of separation of the state cannot be justified in any way.

Court’s displeasure on government’s attitude

Showing a mirror to the government, the High Court brought forward the example of another old case. The court said that the Jharkhand government has already completely followed the decision of the Bihar government in a case involving Panchayat secretaries. When the rule of Bihar was followed in that matter, then it does not seem logical at all to adopt a different stand in the matter of cooperative extension officers. The court considered this lax attitude of the state government as completely impractical and misuse of bureaucratic power. The court expressed deep disagreement with this functioning of the governance system.

Disposal of petition with time limit

Instead of prolonging the matter further, the court has set a fixed deadline for the state government to complete it. The High Court has ordered the state government to issue all formal government orders to this pay scale increase within the coming eight weeks. After this, payment of their financial benefits and other dues should be ensured to all the employees within the next four weeks. By issuing this strict and timely direction, the Honorable Court has completely executed this petition, which has brought a wave of happiness among the employees.