The High Court of Delhi held that the Tribunal is correct in rejecting the rejection of the respondent's voluntary retirement application due to clerical errors like missing date or cycle details. The judgment dismisses the writ petition and awards costs.
Petition dismissed with costs of Rs.10,000 awarded to the respondent.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
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UNION OF INDIA AND ORS ..... Petitioners
Through: Mr J.K. Singh, Standing Counsel for Railways (UOI)
versus
PURAN SINGH ..... Respondent
Through: None.
CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIPIN SANGHI HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE DEEPA SHARMA
O R D E R % 15.05.2017 CM APPL. 18178/2017 (Exemption)
Exemption allowed, subject to just exceptions.
The application stands disposed of.
W.P.(C) 4148/2017 and CM APPL. 18177/2017 (Stay)
The petitioners have preferred the present writ petition to assail the order dated 05.10.2016, passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in Original Application (OA) No.987/2016, preferred by the respondent-applicant. The respondent had sought voluntary retirement under the LARSGESS Scheme. The said application was rejected vide order dated 01.04.2015 on the ground that the date had not been mentioned in the application. It was also stated by the petitioners that the form was incomplete, as the cycle was mentioned either by the employee, or by the SSE/P. Way/Tuglakabad or by the ADEN/Tuglakabad.
The Tribunal, while allowing the Original Application, took note of the fact that in the application form, there was no column incorporated, wherein the respondent was obliged to mention the cycle, and the failure on the part of the respondent to mention the same could not be a reason to reject his application. So far as the failure of the respondent to mention the date is concerned, the Tribunal has held that the same was not so sacrosanct a matter, that its omission should have invited the rejection of the respondent’s application for voluntary retirement.
We have heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and we do not find any reason whatsoever to interfere with the impugned order. It is obvious that if an application made by an applicant and the date is not mentioned, the date of submission of the application should be treated as the date of the application itself. In fact, the conduct of the petitioners in rejecting the respondent’s application for voluntary retirement was completely unjustified and the respondent was unnecessarily driven to file the Original Application. The Tribunal has not granted any cost while allowing his Original Application which, in our view, should have been granted.
In these circumstances, the petition is dismissed with costs of Rs.10,000/-, to be paid to the respondent.
VIPIN SANGHI, J
DEEPA SHARMA, J
MAY 15, 2017/bg
3 issues framed by the court
Whether the High Court should interfere with the CAT order rejecting the respondent's voluntary retirement application due to missing date/cycle details.
Whether the omission of the date in the application should be treated as fatal to the application.
Whether costs should be awarded to the respondent for successfully challenging the rejection.
UNION OF INDIA AND ORS
PURAN SINGH
VIPIN SANGHI
DEEPA SHARMA
As recorded by the court registry
A petition under Article 226 of the Constitution asking a High Court to issue a writ against the State or a public authority in a civil matter.
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
