Nine-year delay disentitles an employee to arrears, but not pay refixation or consequential terminal benefits.

The respondent, a driver with NWKRTC, faced disciplinary proceedings after a bus accident on 20 April 1998.

On 24 January 2003, the Corporation reduced his basic pay to the minimum of the driver’s scale and ordered recovery of one month’s salary.

The respondent raised an industrial dispute approximately nine years later; the Industrial Tribunal rejected his claim.

The Single Judge set aside the Tribunal’s decision and the punishment, reasoning that the Corporation had stated before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (MACT) that the driver was not rash or negligent.

The Division Bench also noted that the respondent had not challenged the penalty for nine years.

Whether the Corporation could maintain disciplinary findings against the driver while having taken the position before the MACT that he was not rash or negligent in causing the same accident.

Whether, given the respondent’s nine-year delay in challenging the penalty, relief should be moulded to exclude arrears of wages while preserving other consequential benefits.

The Court applied the principle that a party cannot approbate and reprobate, or “blow hot and cold,” by taking inconsistent positions concerning the same incident.

It relied on the Division Bench decision in The Managing Director, KKRTC v. Sunita W/o Late Vinod Kumar Mane and Others, MFA No. 201877/2025, decided 23 April 2026, which held that a transport corporation that had fixed responsibility on its employees through disciplinary proceedings could not take a contradictory position in the related MACT proceedings.

The Court also applied its discretion to mould relief in light of the respondent’s prolonged delay in challenging the penalty.

The Single Judge had set aside the punishment because the Corporation’s position before the MACT—that the driver was not rash or negligent—was inconsistent with the disciplinary action arising from the same accident.

The Division Bench relied on the Sunita decision to support the principle against taking contradictory positions.

However, it considered that the respondent had waited nine years to challenge the penalty, a circumstance the Single Judge had not addressed, and held that he should not receive arrears of wages as a windfall from that delay.

It therefore preserved pay refixation and consequential benefits, including the restoration of increments for calculating terminal benefits, while excluding arrears of wages.

The respondent remained entitled to pay refixation and consequential benefits, including restoration of increments for calculating terminal benefits, but not arrears of wages.

The Court further directed that the amount recovered—recorded in its order as ₹6,811—be refunded within four weeks.

Pending interlocutory applications were disposed of.