HRTC conductors’ long battle for pay parity ends

The Himachal Pradesh High Court (HC) has granted major relief to conductors of the Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) by directing the corporation to extend to them the same pay scale as clerks for a specific past period.

Justice Jyotsna Rewal Dua, while allowing a writ petition filed by the State HRTC Conductor Union, held that a clear anomaly existed in the pay scale of conductors from October 1, 2012, to January 1, 2016. The HC ordered HRTC to grant conductors the pay scale that was extended to clerks under the office order dated October 24, 2013, and to release all consequential monetary benefits within eight weeks.

The HC noted that from the first to the fourth pay revisions, the posts of conductor and clerk carried identical pay scales within HRTC. This parity was disturbed only from October 1, 2012, when the state government issued a notification on September 27, 2012. Based on this notification, HRTC revised pay scales for posts covered under it through the order of October 24, 2013. Since conductors were not included in the notification, no revision was granted to them except an increase in grade pay.

Terming this exclusion unjustified, the HC observed that conductors and clerks had historically enjoyed pay parity, which the HRTC later restored under the revised scales implemented from January 1, 2016 (notified in 2022). This, the HC said, reinforced the long-standing equivalence between the two posts.

Taking these facts together, the HC concluded that the pay disparity during the interregnum period was untenable. It accordingly directed HRTC to grant conductors the clerks’ pay scale for the period in question and to disburse the resulting financial benefits within eight weeks.

The petition had been filed by the Conductor Union on behalf of its members, challenging the anomaly in their pay fixation.