New Delhi: Employees cannot claim equal pay merely by showing that they perform identical or similar work, the Supreme Court has ruled, holding that pay parity requires broader equality in recruitment, qualifications, experience, duties and responsibilities.
The doctrine of “equal pay for equal work” has evolved beyond a simple comparison of the work performed owing to which courts must examine whether two groups of employees are equal in all material respects before granting pay parity, the bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu said.
“Mere functional similarity of work has been held to be no longer enough,” the bench observed.
The Court was hearing a dispute involving junior higher secondary school teachers in government-aided schools in Kerala. The teachers had been directly recruited under a 1998 government order and sought the full-time pay scale and allowances given to teachers in the same cadre who had entered higher secondary schools through transfer or promotion.
Their qualifications, duties and responsibilities were identical to those of the transferred and promoted teachers, the directly recruited teachers argued.
The Court, however, upheld the difference in pay, finding that the two groups did not have parity in experience, as reported by News 18.
Employee seeking pay parity must establish broad equality on several factors, including the source of recruitment, educational qualifications, experience, the manner of appointment, and the nature of duties, responsibilities and accountability, the Court said.
“Equal pay must be for equal work of equal value” and that the doctrine has “no mechanical application” in every case, the bench stressed.
Differences in merit, qualifications and experience can justify different pay, the Court held.
Even employees holding the same post and performing similar work may be paid differently where there are genuine differences in responsibility, reliability or confidentiality, provided the classification is bona fide, reasonable and has a rational connection with its objective, the Court observed.
The bench, however, clarified that employees can approach courts seeking equal pay. It observed that constitutional courts can enforce the principle of equal pay but only after examining the relevant factors governing parity.
“If there is complete parity qua all such factors and should equal pay be claimed for equal work of equal value, the writ court can intervene and grant appropriate relief; otherwise not,” the Court said.
