Madras High Court admits to mistake, corrects it too

Chennai:  An incorrect order passed by the Madras high court seven years ago had triggered a deluge of petitions and hundreds of wrong rulings subsequently resulting in loss of several crores of rupees to the government exchequer. While admitting the incorrect order passed, the court said that an illegality will not undergo a metamorphosis and become legal, merely because it received the seal of approval of a court of law.

Dismissing the plea of government vehicle drivers seeking a pay scale of Rs 5,000-5,500 a Division Bench comprising Justices V. Ramasubramanian and T. Mathivanan said the greatness of the court lay only in its courage and ability to correct its mistakes. The association of government vehicle drivers were fighting legal battles at various levels to correct perceived anomalies in their payscale since implementation of V Pay Commission.  

Even as a batch of cases were pending before the Supreme Court, a single judge of the Madras high court passed an innocuous order on September 30, 2008 directing the government to grant higher selection grade and special grade benefits to the drivers. Following the order, a large number of writ petitions were filed demanding monetary benefits.

In the name of ‘judicial discipline’, subsequent judges passed specific order directing the government to fix Rs 5,000-5,500 as payscale for the drivers, without tracing the origin of the demand and without questioning delay in the drivers’ demand. The Bench said “We have gone through the government orders (GOs) many times, to find out what scale of pay the drivers are entitled to in selection and special grades.

We are unable to find that the drivers could legitimately lay claim to selection grade scale of pay of Rs 5,000-8,000 and special grade scale of pay of Rs 5,500-9,000. “Therefore, what they had claimed and got in most of the previous decisions of this court is not what they are lawfully entitled to. “The drivers herein want only that illegality to be perpetrated. An illegality will not undergo a metamorphosis and become legal, merely because it received the seal of approval of a court of law,” the bench added. The Bench said they were entitled to a selection grade scale of pay of '4,000-100-6,000 and a special grade scale of pay of Rs4,300-100-6,000, and not more than that.