Interim Orders Merge into Final Judgments, but Unresolved Salary Claims Require Adjudication on Merits

The petitioners were appointed as drivers by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) in 2010 and were subjected to a medical examination in 2012

They initially challenged this via a writ petition, which was transferred to the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) as TA 52/2012

The CAT passed an interim order on November 15, 2012, directing DTC to provide work to the petitioners

Upon non-compliance, petitioners filed contempt petition CP 347/2013, which was closed on August 8, 2013, after recording that petitioners were receiving salaries even without work

TA 52/2012 was later disposed of on February 12, 2014, making their fate subject to a separate pending High Court matter

The petitioners filed a fresh OA (1947/2014) claiming that salary payments abruptly stopped in September 2013

The CAT dismissed this OA without a merit review, stating it should have been raised in the contempt proceedings and that interim orders had merged into the final order

Whether the Tribunal was justified in dismissing the original application (OA 1947/2014) on technical grounds of maintainability rather than adjudicating the claim for unpaid salary on merits

Whether the issue of non-payment of salary for the period between the closure of contempt proceedings and the final disposal of the TA required a fresh adjudication

The court relied on the landmark precedent of L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997) 3 SCC 261, which established that the High Court’s power of judicial review over Tribunal decisions is part of the basic structure of the Constitution, but legal issues within the Tribunal's jurisdiction should first be addressed by the Tribunal itself

It also applied the principle that once a main proceeding (TA) is disposed of, any surviving or subsequent grievances regarding the implementation of previous entitlements must be ventilated through a fresh Original Application (OA)

The High Court found the CAT's refusal to hear the OA on merits to be unjustified. The Tribunal had expressed "chagrin" that a fresh OA was filed, suggesting the petitioners should have filed an application in the contempt petition

However, the High Court reasoned that since the TA had already been disposed of on February 12, 2014, all interim orders merged into the final order, and the petitioners' only legal recourse for claiming unpaid salary from September 2013 onwards was indeed a fresh OA

The Court noted that the respondent’s defense—that a show-cause notice preceded the stoppage of pay—was a factual dispute that the Tribunal failed to examine

Following L. Chandra Kumar, the Court held that it would be inappropriate for the High Court to decide the merit of the salary claim for the first time; instead, the specialized Tribunal must fulfill its primary adjudicatory role

The High Court set aside the CAT’s order dated December 4, 2019. The matter was remanded to the Tribunal for adjudication on the merits of the petitioners' claim for salary for the period of September 2013 to February 2014

The parties were directed to appear before the Tribunal on July 7, 2026, with a request to the Tribunal to dispose of the matter within six months

Usefully, the Court clarified it expressed no opinion on the actual validity of the salary claim itself