Appellate authority must consider a pending interim relief application within two weeks.

The petitioner, a Training Officer at a Government Industrial Training Institute, was demoted to Assistant Training Officer by proceedings dated 29 June 2026.

He challenged the demotion in an earlier writ petition, which was disposed of on 5 August 2026 with liberty to file a statutory appeal; the appellate authority was directed to entertain the appeal and decide it within two months of filing.

The petitioner filed the appeal and an interim application on 28 August 2026, seeking permission to continue as Training Officer pending the appeal. Claiming that neither filing had been numbered, he brought the present writ petition seeking permission to continue at his earlier post.

The respondents submitted that the appeal remained within the time allowed for its disposal and opposed the separate relief sought in the writ petition.

Whether the Court should direct the respondents to permit the petitioner to continue as Training Officer while his statutory appeal against the demotion was pending.

Whether the appellate authority should be directed to consider the petitioner’s interim application within a specified period.

The Court proceeded on the terms of its earlier order dated 5 August 2026, which required the first respondent to entertain the petitioner’s statutory appeal and pass appropriate orders, after hearing him, within two months from the date of filing.

It applied that direction to the pending appeal and required the appellate authority to consider the interim application as well.

Because the earlier order already required the appellate authority to entertain and decide the appeal within two months, the Court considered the authority obliged to act on the appeal; the fact that the appeal had not yet been numbered did not displace that direction.

The petitioner’s immediate grievance concerned the pending interim application. Rather than grant the substantive request to continue as Training Officer, the Court directed the appellate authority to consider that application within a defined period.

It directed the first respondent to consider the petitioner’s interim application within two weeks from receipt of a copy of the order. No costs were awarded.