Paying Probationers 70-80-90% of Pay Is Discriminatory: MP High Court Strikes Down Rules, Orders Full Salary

After a Council of Ministers decision circulated on 25.11.2019, a GAD circular of 12.12.2019 and an amendment to Fundamental Rule 22-C of 22.02.2020 placed direct recruits not selected through the MP PSC on three years' probation on a stipend of 70%, 80% and 90% of the minimum pay scale (paras 3-4). Departments amended their recruitment rules to match, including the school education teaching cadre rules (paras 2, 4). Twelve writ petitions by such employees challenged the rules and circulars (paras 1, 7). Coordinate Benches had earlier granted relief against the circular in Dilliraj Bhilala and later cases (para 2).

The Bench held that the Council of Ministers' decision did not justify paying a duly selected candidate appointed against a vacant post less than the pay scale: where 100% work is taken from an employee, 100% salary must be paid (para 5). Probation of two or three years to assess an employee for confirmation is justified, but the reduced pay applied only to Class III and IV employees, while Class I and II officers selected through the MP PSC drew the minimum of the pay scale; creating two categories of probationers in this way was "nothing but discrimination" (paras 3, 5). Nor was there any policy to pay the withheld 30%, 20% and 10% after confirmation (para 5). Pay below the scale prescribed in the rules can be given only as punishment for proven misconduct, and even as punishment it cannot go below the minimum of the scale (paras 6-7). The decision circulated on 25.11.2019 was therefore unsustainable and "violative of Article 12, 14 of Constitution of India", and departmental amendments made under it were struck down (para 7).