Central Pay Commission: Persistent Inequality Across Pay Commissions ( part-1)
By Lokanath Mishra
Chief Adviser, All India Pensioners Association of CBIC and the CGHS Beneficiaries Association of CBIC
Introduction
Since the establishment of the First Central Pay Commission (CPC) in 1946, India’s Pay Commission system has been the cornerstone of public service compensation policy. Over nearly eight decades — from the 1st to the 7th CPC — successive Commissions have periodically revised pay, allowances, and pensions for Central Government employees and retirees.
While these revisions have improved nominal salaries and brought occasional relief to pensioners, one structural flaw continues to haunt the system: the absence of equal pay for equal work among similarly placed employees across departments.
Despite the constitutional promise of equality under Article 14 and the Supreme Court’s affirmation of “equal pay for equal work” as a fundamental principle of fairness (as held in Randhir Singh vs Union of India, 1982 and reaffirmed in State of Punjab vs Jagjit Singh, 2017), successive Pay Commissions have failed to uphold this standard across the Central Government workforce.
Persistent Disparity and Preferential Treatment
From the Third Pay Commission (1973) onward, patterns of structural bias began to crystallize. The Indian Administrative Service (IAS), along with a select few Group-A cadres such as the Indian Police Service (IPS), Central Secretariat Service (CSS), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and Intelligence Bureau (IB), consistently received preferential scales, faster promotions, and additional facilities not extended to other equally placed employees.
For example:
• Officers of identical recruitment standards — such as Inspectors of Income Tax, Inspectors of Central Excise, Preventive Officers, and Examiners of Customs — enter service through common competitive examinations. Yet, their career progression and terminal benefits vary sharply, with some receiving five promotions in their career while others stagnate with only one or two.
• The introduction of Non-Functional Financial Upgradation (NFFU) under the 6th CPC, applicable to IAS and Group-A services, institutionalized automatic time-bound promotions — a privilege not extended to other cadres, leading to widening pay and pension gaps.
This preferential structure has entrenched a two-tier administrative system, where authority, privilege, and post-retirement benefits are determined less by function or merit and more by service category.
Unresolved Anomalies Despite Reforms
Each Pay Commission has claimed to “simplify” and “rationalize” the pay structure. The 6th CPC introduced pay bands and grade pay; the 7th CPC replaced these with the Pay Matrix. Yet, these changes largely repackaged existing disparities rather than correcting them.
Key anomalies that remain unresolved include:
• Grade pay disparities for identical or near-identical duties across departments.
• Compression of pay scales, where seniors draw less pay or pension than juniors — contradicting both administrative logic and morale.
• Differential pension fixation, resulting in unequal pensions for employees with identical last pay.
• Non-uniform implementation across Ministries, where selective interpretations at the “file movement” stage dilute Commission recommendations.
Despite repeated representations and hundreds of court judgments, including landmark rulings such as D.S. Nakara vs Union of India (1983), the principle of parity among similarly placed employees and pensioners has not been universally applied.
The Case of Pensioners: Growing Inequality After Retirement
For pensioners, the inequity deepens further. Although “One Rank, One Pension” (OROP) was introduced for the defence forces, no equivalent principle has been extended to civilian employees. Consequently, in many departments, a junior retiree draws higher pension than a senior, solely due to differing Pay Commission implementations or date-of-retirement effects.
The Modified Assured Career Progression (MACP) scheme, introduced to address stagnation, also failed to bring uniformity. For example:
• In the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Inspectors of Central Excise and Preventive Officers often retire with only one or two promotions, while their counterparts in the Income Tax Department or Customs (Examiner Cadre) — recruited through the same competitive examination — enjoy up to five promotions.
• Such disparities violate the equality principle affirmed by the Supreme Court and have led to thousands of pending court cases across the country.
Temporary Gains, Structural Losses
Across Pay Commissions, certain positive steps are undeniable:
• Periodic upward revisions in pay and pension scales have improved nominal income.
• Dearness Allowance (DA) mechanisms and fitment factors have offered partial relief against inflation.
• Judicial and parliamentary interventions have occasionally corrected glaring anomalies.
However, these were short-term gains. The underlying structural inequities — unequal grade pay, selective upgradations, and arbitrary implementation — remained untouched.
Moreover, the real value of pensions has eroded over time due to inflation and inadequate indexing, while post-retirement healthcare costs have risen sharply without corresponding support mechanisms.
The Way Forward: The 8th Pay Commission’s Moral Imperative
As the Government prepares to constitute the 8th Central Pay Commission, it must confront the uncomfortable truth: the Pay Commission system, as it stands, has failed to deliver equity and uniformity.
The 8th CPC must therefore:
1. Uphold the principle of equal pay for equal work across all Central Government services, irrespective of cadre or department.
2. Correct historic anomalies in pay scales, grade pay, and pension fixation.
3. Introduce statutory representation for pensioners’ associations during Commission deliberations — ensuring those affected have a direct voice.
4. Treat pensions and healthcare as core social security entitlements, not fiscal burdens.
5. Implement “One Rank, One Pension” for all Central Government employees, ensuring seniors are never disadvantaged compared to juniors.
6. Reform MACP and career progression policies to guarantee time-bound promotions and remove inter-departmental disparities.
Conclusion
After more than seventy years of Pay Commissions, it is time for a paradigm shift — from bureaucratic privilege to fairness, from fiscal expediency to social justice.
The men and women who built and sustained India’s administrative machinery deserve equality, dignity, and transparency — not selective generosity.
Pensions are not charity; they are a deferred right, a continuing contract between the State and those who have served it.
The 8th Pay Commission must finally correct what the previous seven could not — the systemic inequity that divides India’s own public servants.
(To be continued)