The Bench comprising justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Mohammed Nias C.P., while allowing an appeal filed by some retired KSRTC employees, held that offering differential rates of DA to pensioners was violative of the equality clause in the Constitution.
The appeal was filed against a single judge’s order dismissing their plea for enhanced DA percentage equal to that being granted to serving employees. The single judge had held that employees and pensioners did not form a homogeneous group for disbursement of DA, and therefore they could not allege discrimination.
The single judge also found that the petitioners were not equal to serving employees, since, by living standards, retired employees had to spend less when compared to serving employees.
The Bench observed that the restriction of enhanced benefits to employees alone to the exclusion of pensioners on the specious plea of reasonable classification appeared to be violative of the equality clause enshrined in the Constitution. The court said that once the KSRTC management decided to extend the benefit to the said employees/pensioners, there could not be discrimination between them in the course of the implementation of the decision.
The objective of extending an enhanced rate of DA/DR is essentially to balance the effects of ongoing inflation so as to ensure that it did not interfere with the enjoyment of life to which an employee/pensioner is accustomed. Through the payment of allowances, the objective is to be attained both in respect of employees and pensioners.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/retired-ksrtc-employees-entitled-to-equal-percentage-of-enhanced-da/article66174135.ece
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