Retired SAI employees are entitled to medical reimbursement at serving-employee rates where service rules are silent.

The applicant, a retired Hockey Coach of the Sports Authority of India (SAI), retired on 31 August 2016. His wife, who suffered from a kidney ailment, died on 14 October 2020. In October 2020, the applicant submitted a claim for reimbursement of medical expenses amounting to ₹5,45,797 incurred for her treatment.

When the claim was not decided, he approached the Tribunal in OA No. 337 of 2022; by order dated 31 January 2024, the respondents were directed to decide his representation dated 14 December 2020. The respondents rejected the claim by order dated 14 March 2024, principally on the ground that SAI is an autonomous body, that its rules contain no provision for medical reimbursement after retirement, and that retired employees receive only a fixed medical allowance of ₹1,000 per month under the DoPT Office Memorandum dated 19 July 2017.

The applicant challenged the rejection and relied on K.N. Sharma v. Union of India, OA No. 1422 of 2017, decided by the Principal Bench of the Tribunal on 19 September 2018, concerning a similar claim by a retired SAI employee.

Whether a retired SAI employee is entitled to consideration and reimbursement of medical expenses incurred for the treatment of his dependent spouse, notwithstanding the absence of an express post-retirement reimbursement provision in the SAI rules.

Whether the respondents’ rejection of the applicant’s medical reimbursement claim dated 14 March 2024 was sustainable in view of the coordinate Bench’s decision in K.N. Sharma.

Whether the applicant was entitled to reimbursement of ₹5,45,797, interest, and other consequential reliefs.

The Tribunal applied paragraph 44 of the SAI service bye-laws, under which Central Government instructions apply where the SAI bye-laws are silent on a matter.

It relied on the coordinate Bench’s decision in K.N. Sharma v. Union of India, which held that, in the absence of a specific SAI provision governing post-retirement medical reimbursement, paragraph 44 attracts the applicable Central Government medical-benefit instructions and that reimbursement cannot logically be confined to serving employees, particularly since medical needs generally increase in old age.

The Tribunal also applied the principle of judicial consistency by following the coordinate Bench decision, there being no material to establish that it had been stayed or reversed.

The Tribunal found that the essential facts and legal controversy were materially identical to those in K.N. Sharma: both cases concerned medical reimbursement claimed by retired SAI employees, while the SAI rules were silent on reimbursement after retirement.

Although the respondents relied on SAI’s autonomous status, the fixed medical allowance, and the alleged absence of a post-retirement reimbursement rule, those considerations did not displace paragraph 44 of the SAI bye-laws.

Since the coordinate Bench had already held that the applicable Central Government instructions could operate in such a situation and that retired employees could not be excluded merely because they had retired, the Tribunal held that there was no justification for taking a different view.

The pendency of a challenge to K.N. Sharma before the Delhi High Court did not affect its application because no stay or reversal had been shown.

The reimbursement was to be processed within three months of receipt of a certified copy of the order.

The associated miscellaneous applications were disposed of, and the parties were directed to bear their own costs.