State must get liberty to retain retd staffer: Punjab and Haryana High Court

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, June 29

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that the state, although a welfare one, was required to be given the liberty to choose an employee it wanted to retain beyond the statutory period of service. Being an employer, the state is better equipped to adjudicate an employee’s suitability to continue.

The Bench of Justice Jaswant Singh and Justice Sant Parkash also made it clear that the decision to retain or let go an employee beyond the retirement age was required to be “within the four corners of settled principles of service jurisprudence”.

The ruling came on an appeal by a Punjab Police DSP, who was seeking actual pay for the entire second extension period. The matter was placed before the Bench after his plea was declined by a Single Judge on “no work no pay” principle.

The appellant was to retire at 58 on February 28, 2018, but was granted a year’s extension from March 1, 2018, to February 28, 2019. The extension order was, however, withdrawn following the issuance of a chargesheet pursuant to certain orders passed by a judicial magistrate on the allegation of misconduct and the HC directions.

A stay order in his favour continued till his first extension period was over. After rounds of litigation, he was granted extension in service from January 24, 2020, till February 28, 2020. As such the petitioner did not work from March 1, 2019, till January 24, 2020, and there was no extension in service period from March 1, 2019, till January 23, 2020.

The Bench asserted it was clear that the order declining the first extension was not put to judicial scrutiny on merits. The subsequent order declining the second extension was also set aside on a technical ground that the chargesheet was not pending against the appellant at the time of passing fresh orders. The state’s willingness to continue with the employee’s services was never adjudicated on merits and he was able to continue by taking aid of technicalities.

As such, the Single Judge rightly declined to grant the actual pay benefits to appellant for the time he had not worked. “Once the appellant relinquished charge on the completion of first extension, some other officer would have taken over the duties and discharged the functions, whereas all this time the appellant was before the court trying to cling on to a job from which he had originally superannuated on the completion of 58 years of service,” the Bench asserted. Dismissing his appeal, the Bench added he had no vested right to continue.