IMPHAL, February 7: In a rare incident, the monthly salary of an Assam Riffles personnel was deducted without any reason following which a petition was filed in the High Court of Manipur and the Court orders payment the petitioner the scale of pay he deserved.
Rameshchand Sharma, 52, posted at 30 AR which is attached to HQ IGAR (south) Mantripukhri and with the service no. JC – 3000449 L is the son Wadho Ram Sharma, a resident of Jindwin village in Hamirpur district, Himachal Pradesh.
Source reveals to IFP that the AR personnel was recruited to Assam Riffles as general duty soldier and promoted to Lance Naik in 1990, Naik in 1993, Havildar in 1997 and he has rendered his service as Naik Subedar till now since 2012. His pay scale as a Naik Subedar is Rs 9300 – 34, 800 plus admissible grade pay allowance of Rs 4200 per month.
Surprisingly for him, the Assam Riffles authority had made an order on September 22, 2012 to pay Rameshchand a monthly salary of Rs 19,140 with effect from July 1 of the same year, said the source adding that the decrease in his monthly salary still continues to the extent that he now draws a monthly salary of Rs 16,570 following an order of Assam Riffles authority notified on October 30, 2013.
Enraged by the situation, Rameshchand opted for a court case against the Assam Rifles and consequently filed a petition to the High Court of Manipur on February 4, 2014 and Court accepting his petition as a case under writ petition (C) No. 36 of 2014. The hearing of the case was done on Thursday.
After hearing of the case, the single bench of the Chief Justice (Acting) Laxmi Kanta Mohapatra ruled that the respondent(s) of the case should submit counter affidavit(s) within four weeks counting from the date of the issued notice and necessary notice should be served within one week, the source said.
The ruling of the High Court reads as “As an interim measure, it is directed that the petitioner may receive the scale of pay granted in annexure – A/8 without prejudice to his right claiming the scale of pay mentioned in annexure – A/7, which he was receiving for more than one year. It is made clear that in the event the petitioner succeeds in the writ application, he shall be allowed arrear pay.”
The respondents of this case are the Union of India through the secretary, ministry of Home Affairs, Govt of India, the Director General of Assam Riffles, Shillong, Commandant, 30 Assam Riffles, c/o 99 APO respectively, the source said, adding that advocate Kh Tarunkumar is representing the petitioner and Union government’s standing counsel Amerjit Naorem represents the respondents.