Retired Postal Assistant’s Third MACP Claim Fails: Allahabad CAT Cites Only 8 Years, 5 Months Since Second Upgrade and His Late Challenge

The applicant entered service as a Gramin Dak Sevak in 1979, joined the Postman cadre in 1991, and joined the Postal Assistant cadre in 1996 after qualifying in a departmental examination.

In 2010, the respondents granted him the second MACP with effect from 1 September 2008 but denied the first MACP on the basis that his appointment to the Postal Assistant cadre was a promotion. He did not challenge that determination at the time and retired on 31 January 2017.

After retirement, he sought the third MACP, which the respondents rejected. He then filed this application under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, seeking the third MACP and consequential pensionary benefits.

Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, permits an aggrieved person to apply to the Tribunal for redressal of a service-related grievance.

Under the MACP Scheme, entitlement to a financial upgradation depends on the Scheme’s qualifying-service requirements and the financial upgradations already granted; the Tribunal treated completion of ten years of regular service from the grant of the second MACP as relevant to eligibility for the third MACP.

The Tribunal also applied the principle that delay, acquiescence, and fence-sitting may defeat a claim where an employee accepts an earlier service determination and seeks relief only after similarly situated employees succeed in litigation.

It noted that the treatment of Postal Assistant appointments through the departmental examination had been considered in Union of India v. E. Sreeramulu, SLP (C) No. 4432/2019, and in earlier Tribunal decisions, but found those decisions distinguishable on the present facts.

The Tribunal considered that the applicant had accepted the 2010 order granting the second MACP while denying the first, and had neither challenged that determination during service nor sought to reopen it in this application.

It treated that acquiescence and the timing of the later claim as significant, noting that the applicant raised the grievance only after retirement and after similarly situated employees had pursued litigation.

Independently, the applicant had received the second MACP from 1 September 2008 and retired on 31 January 2017, before completing ten years of service from that grant; the Tribunal therefore found that he had not established the qualifying service for the third MACP.

It concluded that the decisions relied upon by the applicant did not warrant a different result on these facts.

It dismissed the Original Application and disposed of the pending miscellaneous applications, with no order as to costs.