“We are now seeking justice for implementation of the National Judicial Pay Commission (Shetty Commission).. Otherwise, we are considering to launch agitation and file suit against the State Government for contempt of the apex court’s directives,” Tripura Judicial Officers Association(TJOA) president S C Das and secretary B P Karmakar said. The judicial officers had in writing informed their Drawing and Disbursement Officers (DDO) that they would not receive the revised pay scale without the arrears.

The State Finance Department issued a notification on May 31 saying that no arrears of pay in respect of the period from July 1, 1996, to March 31, 2003, would be paid to the judicial officers. The financial benefits accruing due to fixation of pay in the revised scale would be payable from April 1, 2003 in cash, it had said.

Das and Karmakar said this notification was a “clear violation of the Supreme Court directives” on implementation of the Shetty Commission recommendation. The State Government had also deviated from its earlier commitments to the apex court, they alleged.

The State Chief Secretary and the Advocate General recently appeared before the Supreme Court and informed that the State Government had taken a decision to implement the Shetty Commission recommendation, they claimed.

The State judicial officers, comprising Chief Judicial Magistrates, district and sessions judges, Law Secretary and other justices of the lower courts, had already approached the Supreme Court through their parent body—All India Judges’ Association—for initiating a contempt proceeding against the State Government for “non-implementation” of the apex court judgement in respect of uniform pay scale by April 1, 2003. “A contempt case is pending before the apex court and the next hearing of the case was fixed in the last week of July,” they said.

The TJOA president and secretary said to implement the Supreme Court’s direction about the Shetty Commission’s recommendations, the annual financial implication would be of an additional amount of Rs 39.33 lakhs. They said the Tripura Government’s stand before the apex court throughout was that the State would abide by the Supreme Court’s judgement on the matter and the Government had submitted statement by affidavit before the apex court.

It should be mentioned here that in pursuance to the direction of the Supreme Court, the Government of India on March 21, 1996, constituted the first National Judicial Pay Commission for the subordinate judiciary all over the country with specific terms of reference and Justice K Jagannath Shetty, former Supreme Court Judge, was the Commission’s Chairman. Following the Commission’s recommendation relating to the interim relief, the Tripura Government in April, 1998, allowed interim relief to the judicial officers at the rate of 40 per cent of basic pay and DA as on January 1, 1996.

The Shetty Commission submitted its report to the Supreme Court on November 11, 1999, and the apex court, after hearing all concerned, accepted the report of the first Judicial Pay Commission.

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