The Delhi High Court dismissed a writ petition by Private Secretaries of the Income Tax Department seeking parity with the Central Secretariat Stenographers’ Service. It held their pay parity claim was not a matter of simply mechanical application.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court dismissed a writ petition filed by Private Secretaries and Senior Private Secretaries of the Income Tax Department seeking pay parity with their counterparts in the Central Secretariat Stenographers’ Service (CSSS), holding that distinguishing between Secretariat and non-Secretariat establishments is a valid classification grounded in expert recommendations.
A Division Bench of the High Court Hon’ble Mr. Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Amit Mahajan pronounced the judgment on March 20, 2026, upholding the Central Administrative Tribunal’s (CAT) decision.
CAT had earlier declined to interfere with the Department of Expenditure’s choice to maintain different pay scales for field offices and the Secretariat.
Background
The petitioners, representing Private Secretaries and Senior Private Secretaries in the Income Tax Department under the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), sought restoration of historical pay parity they said existed with the CSSS until the Third Central Pay Commission.
The dispute heightened after the Sixth Central Pay Commission’s revisions and the grant of higher pay scales to CSSS effective September 15, 2006. The Department of Expenditure rejected the petitioners’ representations on January 7, 2022, reasoning that Secretariat pay scales are not applicable to offices located outside the Secretariat.
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The petitioners argued that historically there was parity with the CSSS, and that the divergence in pay scales arose only after changes introduced by later Pay Commissions. They emphasised that both cadres are recruited through the Staff Selection Commission via the same competitive examination, sharing identical entry qualifications and skill requirements.
According to them, their duties are also substantially similar, and creating different pay structures amounts to an “impermissible post-recruitment classification” based purely on the chance of being posted in one establishment or another.
They further relied on observations in the Sixth Central Pay Commission, which described field offices as being at the “cutting edge of administration,” asserting that they therefore deserve treatment equal to Secretariat staff.
In response, the respondents maintained that there is a deliberate and long-standing distinction between Secretariat and non-Secretariat cadres, and that this intentional differentiation justifies separate pay structures.
They pointed out that the Sixth Central Pay Commission itself endorsed this demarcation and specifically recommended that absolute parity should extend only up to the grade of Assistant.
They also argued that matters related to pay fixation fall within the expertise of specialised bodies and the executive, urging that courts should exercise judicial restraint and avoid substituting their views for those of expert authorities.
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The Court acknowledged that the principle of “equal pay for equal work” is a well-established tenet of service law but observed it is not to be applied mechanically.
Determination of equivalence between posts, it said, depends on multiple considerations including hierarchy, career progression, and the administrative context.
The Court noted the Sixth CPC deliberately limited parity, observing that beyond the level of Assistant, “complete parity might neither be possible nor justified.”
It added that expert recommendations should be read in their entirety and cannot be dissected so as to retain only those segments that support the claim of the Petitioners.
The Court held that recruitment through a common agency (SSC) does not automatically entitle cadres to identical pay. It also stated that past parity does not operate as an immutable command and cannot be invoked to “fossilize a pay structure or to preclude a conscious re-evaluation by an expert body.”
The Bench relied significantly on the Supreme Court’s decision in Union of India & Ors. v. Manoj Kumar & Ors [2021], which found that when a Pay Commission consciously frames separate recommendations for Secretariat and non-Secretariat organizations, a judicial direction for absolute parity would render those recommendations “otiose.”
The Court distinguished authorities cited by the petitioners, such as Union of India v. D.G.O.F. Employees Association and Union of India v. Rajesh Kumar Gond, noting that the present dispute turns on a distinction expressly recognized and preserved by the Sixth CPC.
The High Court concluded that “the petitioners did not establish a basis for directing pay parity where a distinction has been acknowledged and consciously preserved by the expert body. The Petitioners’ case… may furnish a legitimate basis for administrative representation. It falls short, however, of justifying a direction for pay parity in the face of a distinction acknowledged and consciously preserved by the expert body as part of the governing service structure.”
Accordingly, the writ petition and the pending application were dismissed.
Case Title: ITGOA & ORS. v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS., W.P.(C) 1144/2026