UNION OF INDIA vs SHUBHAM PANDEY AND ORS

Judgment text excerpt

$~ * IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI % Judgment reserved on: 09.02.2026 Judgment pronounced on: 20.02.2026 + W.P.(C) 1764/2026, CM APPL. 8584/2026, CM APPL. 8585/2026 UNION OF INDIA .....Petitioner Through: Mr. Nishant Gautam, CGSC with Ms. Kavya Shukla, Mr. Vineet Negi, Mr. Naman Verma, with Officers present- Brigadier Niloy Saha. versus SHUBHAM PANDEY AND ORS .....Respondents Through: Mr. Aditya Narayan Tripathy, Dr. Kedar Nath Tripathy, Mr. Niraj Sinha, Ms. Soumya Punna, Ms. Pallavi Sahu, Advs. CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ANIL KSHETARPAL HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AMIT MAHAJAN JUDGMENT AMIT MAHAJAN, J. 1. The present petition has been field assailing the order dated 25.02.2025, passed by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi (hereinafter ‘CAT’) in O.A. No. 1804/2023 whereby the Petitioner was directed to re-fix the basic of the Respondents by allowing the benefit of pay protection of the pay drawn by the them along with consequential benefits. Signature Not Verified Signed By:HARMINDER KAUR Signing Date:20.02.2026 W.P.(C) 1764/2026 Page 1 of 20 17:40:40 2. The quintessential facets governing the present dispute are that the Respondents are Direct Recruit Officers of the Military Engineer Services (‘MSE’) of different Batches, 18 of them are from Indian Defense Service of Engineers (‘IDSE’) Cadre and the other 3 belong to Quantity Surveying and Contracts (‘QS&C’) Cadre, recruited between 2003 to 2019, as Assistant Executive Engineers (‘AEE’) through the All India Engineering Services Examination by the Union Public Service Commission, within. 3. At the time of appearing for the examination, they were employed at various PSUs viz. BHEL, NTPC, IOCL, PGCIL, ONGC etc. and it has been alleged that they had overall suffered in terms of tota