SRINAGAR: The High Court of Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh has affirmed a previous ruling mandating the Union Territory administration to provide increased remuneration to vocational instructors employed on an academic arrangement basis within Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs). The court’s decision emphasizes that individuals performing identical duties should not receive disparate pay simply due to differences in funding schemes.
Information was available with The Chenab Times that a Division Bench, comprising Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Sanjay Parihar, dismissed an appeal lodged by the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and its Skill Development Department. The appeal had challenged a Single Bench judgment concerning 25 vocational instructors working across various ITIs in the region.
The original case, WP(C) No. 208/2021 titled Fayaz Ahmad Bhat and Others versus UT of JK and Others, had been decided by a Single Judge on July 4, 2025. The vocational instructors, engaged between 2009 and 2011 under the Skill Development Department’s Self-Finance Scheme, initially received a monthly honorarium of Rs 4,000. This amount was subsequently revised through Government Order No. 109-Edu/Tech of 2012, setting Rs 6,000 for degree-holding instructors and Rs 5,500 for ITI/CTI qualified personnel. Further enhancements were granted in 2017.
The central dispute emerged with the issuance of Government Order No. 34-JK(DSD) of 2020 on October 12, 2020. This order stipulated an increase in remuneration for candidates engaged on an academic arrangement basis in ITIs and Polytechnics to Rs 15,000 for gazetted posts and Rs 12,000 for non-gazetted positions. However, the department refused to extend these revised rates to the petitioners, arguing they were employed under the Self Finance Scheme and not against sanctioned vacancies.
Following the failure of their representations, the instructors pursued legal recourse, approaching the High Court to seek the implementation of the 2020 government order. Appearing for the administration, Government Advocate Ilyas Nazir Laway argued that the 2020 order was intended exclusively for those appointed against clear gazetted and non-gazetted posts, and did not extend to individuals engaged under the Self Finance Scheme.
Advocates Zamir Abdullah and Zahir Abdullah, representing the vocational instructors, countered this argument by asserting that the government order did not differentiate based on the funding scheme. They maintained that so long as employees were engaged on an academic arrangement basis and performed identical duties, the revised remuneration should apply universally.
The Division Bench concurred with the Single Judge’s interpretation, ruling that the 2020 government order provided for enhanced remuneration to all candidates engaged on an academic arrangement basis in ITIs and Polytechnics. The court clarified that references to gazetted and non-gazetted posts were solely for determining the appropriate pay scale based on the nature of duties performed.
“The benefit of enhanced remuneration has been granted to all the candidates engaged on academic arrangement basis in ITIs and Polytechnics,” the Bench stated. Those whose duties were equivalent to gazetted posts were entitled to Rs 15,000 per month, while those performing functions akin to non-gazetted posts were eligible for Rs 12,000.
The court rejected the government’s reliance on the Self Finance Scheme as justification for pay disparity. It underscored that the source of payment cannot legitimize discrimination when the nature of work is identical. “It cannot be said that those who are engaged as Lecturers or Vocational Instructors on academic arrangement basis and paid under the ‘Self Finance Scheme’ perform duties different from those engaged against gazetted or non-gazetted posts,” the court observed.
Applying the constitutional principle of “equal pay for equal work,” the Bench held that differential wages were unsustainable based solely on different funding sources. “We cannot approve the action of the petitioners giving different wages to the persons for similar duties merely on the ground that the sources of payment of their wages/remuneration differ,” the court concluded.
Finding no legal grounds to interfere with the Single Bench’s decision, the Division Bench dismissed the appeal, thereby upholding the vocational instructors’ entitlement to the enhanced remuneration as stipulated in the 2020 government order.
The Chenab Times News Desk