Higher duties at lower pay amount to workplace exploitation: DB

16/10/2026

JAMMU, Oct 15: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has held that requiring an employee to discharge higher-level responsibilities while paying him a lower salary amounts to workplace exploitation, which is impermissible in law.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Dr Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati and Justice Rajesh Sekhri made the observation while dismissing an appeal filed by the Jammu and Kashmir administration against a Single Bench judgment granting substantive promotion and consequential benefits to an employee of Municipal Council Sopore.
The case concerned Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh, who was initially engaged as a daily wager in Municipal Committee Sopore in 1980 and whose services were regularised in 1988.
The court noted that a similarly placed employee, Khazir Mohammad Shah, had been promoted as Jamadar/Sanitary Supervisor in 1994, while Sheikh was denied similar treatment.
In 1999, the High Court directed the authorities to consider Sheikh's claim for promotion. However, the direction was not implemented in its true spirit, the Bench noted.
Sheikh had been performing the duties of Jamadar/Sanitary Supervisor since June 2000, initially in his own pay and grade and subsequently with charge allowance from April 28, 2005.
The Executive Officer of Municipal Council Sopore had also recommended upgrading his post to Sanitary Supervisor. However, the Director of Urban Local Bodies rejected his claim by relying on the Jammu and Kashmir Urban Local Body Institutions (Management) Service Recruitment Rules, 2008.
Allowing Sheikh's petition on May 2, 2023, the Single Bench held that he should be deemed to have been substantively appointed and promoted as Sanitary Supervisor with effect from April 28, 2005, along with all consequential benefits.
Challenging the order, the administration contended that merely performing the duties of a higher post did not confer any right to substantive promotion or the corresponding pay scale.
Government Advocate Ilyas Nazir Laway appeared for the appellants, while Advocate B. A. Zargar represented Sheikh.
Rejecting the administration's arguments, the Division Bench observed that although an employee ordinarily cannot claim the pay scale of a higher post merely for performing its duties, an exception arises when the employee has been formally directed to discharge the responsibilities of that post.
"Making an employee to perform higher level responsibilities while paying him lower salary amounts to work place exploitation, which is not countenanced in law," the Bench observed.
The court further held that Sheikh's promotional rights had accrued before the enforcement of the 2008 recruitment rules. His claim, therefore, could not be rejected by applying rules introduced subsequently, it said.
The Bench observed that the authorities ought to have examined his entitlement under the legal framework applicable on April 28, 2005, rather than relying on subsequent recruitment rules that operated prospectively.
Finding no illegality or impropriety in the Single Bench judgment, the Division Bench dismissed the administration's Letters Patent Appeal (LPA No. 78/2024), along with connected applications, thereby upholding the grant of substantive promotion and consequential benefits to Sheikh.

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