CAT Closes Contempt Case Over Five Kanpur Depot Workers’ Higher ACP Claim After Speaking Order, Leaving Rejection Open To Challenge

The applicants brought contempt proceedings under Section 17 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, alleging non-compliance with the Tribunal’s order dated 26 September 2012. That order had quashed an earlier decision and remitted the matter for reconsideration of the applicants’ claim to first ACP benefits in light of the decision in Subhash & Ors.

The respondents challenged the Tribunal’s order before the Allahabad High Court. On 16 March 2026, the High Court modified it and directed the competent authority to consider the first-ACP claim independently, after notice and an opportunity of hearing, and in light of the ACP notification dated 9 August 1999.

The respondents subsequently issued a reasoned order dated 17 June 2026 rejecting the claim to the Rs. 5,000–8,000 pay scale, relying on the cadre hierarchy and applicable service materials.

The applicants objected that they had not been given a hearing before that order was made; their counsel acknowledged that the speaking order had been passed.

Section 17 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, provides the basis for the Tribunal’s contempt jurisdiction.

The operative direction was the Allahabad High Court’s order dated 16 March 2026, which required the competent authority to consider the applicants’ first-ACP claim independently, after due notice and an opportunity of hearing, and in light of the notification dated 9 August 1999.

The Tribunal treated the passing of a speaking order addressing the claim as compliance for purposes of closing the contempt proceedings, while preserving the applicants’ liberty to challenge that order in a fresh original application.

The Tribunal noted that the respondents had issued a reasoned order considering the applicants’ claim against the relevant recruitment rules, cadre- restructuring materials and ACP scheme, and had rejected the requested pay scale.

Although the applicants objected that no hearing had been afforded, the Tribunal concluded that compliance had been made because the speaking order had been passed; it did not separately resolve the factual dispute about whether an opportunity of hearing was actually provided.

It left any challenge to the merits or procedure of that order to a fresh original application.

It discharged the notices and disposed of the associated miscellaneous applications.

The applicants were granted liberty to challenge the speaking order by filing a fresh original application if they remained aggrieved.