An interim status quo order does not regularize unauthorized absence or avert a break in service.

The applicant, a TGT (English) at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Mariahu, was suspended on 14 March 2005.

The Tribunal stayed the suspension order on 31 May 2005 and subsequently quashed it on 9 November 2005, directing payment of full pay and allowances from the date of suspension.

The respondents revoked the suspension on 28 October 2005 and communicated the order to the applicant in November 2005.

The applicant maintained that he had attempted to rejoin, including by sending joining reports, but the respondents said he did not formally assume charge.

He ultimately submitted a joining report on 31 January 2007 and was permitted to join from 1 February 2007.

The respondents treated 29 October 2005 to 31 January 2007 as unauthorised absence causing interruption in service and denied pay and allowances for that period.

1. Whether the applicant’s absence from 29 October 2005 to 31 January 2007 was authorised or could be treated as a period of duty, entitling him to pay and allowances

2. Whether the respondents’ orders treating that period as an interruption or break in service were sustainable under the applicable Fundamental Rules

Fundamental Rule 17(1) provides that an officer draws the pay and allowances attached to a post from the date the officer assumes its duties and ceases to draw them when those duties cease; its proviso denies pay and allowances for absence from duty without authority.

Fundamental Rule 17-A(iii) provides that an individual employee’s unauthorised absence or desertion of post is deemed to cause an interruption or break in service, unless the competent authority decides otherwise for the limited purposes specified in that rule.

The Tribunal also considered Rule 10(1) of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965, under which the applicant had initially been suspended.

The Tribunal found that the applicant had not actually assumed charge or discharged duties at Mariahu during the disputed period.

His communications and joining reports, including the report sent by post, did not establish that he had formally resumed duty; the record showed that he joined only on 1 February 2007.

The status quo order in the applicant’s transfer case neither granted leave nor authorised his absence, and it could not retrospectively validate the period before that order was made.

Applying FR 17(1) and FR 17-A(iii), the Tribunal concluded that the absence was unauthorised and that no competent-authority order regularising it had been produced.

It upheld the impugned orders and dismissed the O.A. with no order as to costs; pending miscellaneous applications were deemed disposed of.