A voluntary retirement notice cannot be withdrawn after its prescribed notice period expires.

The applicant, a North Eastern Railway employee due to retire on 30 September 2022, applied for voluntary retirement on 1 March 2016.

His application was accepted, and an order dated 5 July 2016 made his retirement effective from 31 July 2016.

He sought to withdraw his application on 22 July 2016; the Railway rejected the request on 29 July 2016, stating that the three-month notice period had expired on 30 June 2016.

The applicant challenged those orders and also sought payment of his retiral benefits.

The respondents maintained that withdrawal was sought after the notice period and that the applicant had not completed the formalities required to process payment.

Whether the applicant could withdraw his voluntary-retirement application on 22 July 2016, before the proposed effective retirement date but after expiry of the prescribed notice period

Whether the applicant was entitled to a direction for processing and release of his admissible retiral benefits

The Tribunal applied the Railway Board instructions governing withdrawal of a voluntary-retirement notice, including Railway Board letter No. E(P&A)I-2000/RT-9 dated 5 November 2001.

It stated that a withdrawal request must be made before expiry of the prescribed notice period, irrespective of whether the voluntary retirement has already been accepted.

The Tribunal also considered the applicant’s reliance on Arvind Kishor Srivastava v. Union of India & Ors., OA No. 63/2013, distinguishing it because the withdrawal there had been sought within a few days of the VRS request.

The Tribunal treated 1 March 2016—the date the applicant submitted his VRS application—as the starting point for reckoning the notice period, which the respondents stated expired on 30 June 2016.

Because the withdrawal request was made on 22 July 2016, it fell outside that period.

The fact that the request preceded the proposed retirement date of 31 July 2016 did not, in the Tribunal’s view, give the applicant an automatic right to withdraw.

It also held that the application’s initial submission to an authority other than the appointing authority did not invalidate the orders, since it had been forwarded to the competent authority.

The cited Arvind Kishor Srivastava decision was distinguishable on its facts.

As to benefits, the Tribunal directed payment of only those retiral benefits admissible under the applicable rules.

It partly allowed the OA by directing the respondents to process and release the applicant’s admissible retiral benefits in accordance with the applicable rules; no costs were awarded, and the associated miscellaneous applications were disposed of.