Rule 54-A(3) Applies Only When Dismissal Is Set Aside on the Merits.

The appellant, a Grade-I Police Constable, was dismissed from service in 2004 following disciplinary proceedings.

In earlier litigation, the Division Bench remitted the matter for reconsideration of punishment; the competent authority thereafter imposed stoppage of increment for one year with cumulative effect.

The appellant’s requests to treat the period from 23 April 2004 to 23 July 2008 as duty were rejected in 2008 and 2014, and he did not challenge either rejection.

In 2018, he sought promotion above his immediate juniors, relying on Rule 54-A(3) of the Fundamental Rules.

The Single Judge dismissed the petition because the 2014 rejection had not been challenged; the appellant appealed.

Whether the appellant could obtain a direction for promotion without challenging the orders rejecting his claim to treat the period out of service as duty.

Whether Rule 54-A(3) applied where the dismissal was not set aside on the merits, but the matter was remitted for reconsideration of punishment.

Rule 54-A(3) of the Fundamental Rules provides for treating the intervening period as duty, with the specified pay and allowances, where a Government servant’s dismissal, removal or compulsory retirement is set aside by a court on the merits of the case.

A party cannot indirectly reopen an unchallenged order by seeking consequential relief founded on the same underlying claim; the Court also considered the appellant’s failure to challenge the rejection orders and his delay in seeking relief.

The appellant’s promotion claim depended on treating his absence from service as duty, but the competent authority had rejected that claim in 2008 and again in 2014, and neither order was challenged.

The Court held that promotion proceedings could not be used to indirectly reopen those decisions.

Rule 54-A(3) did not assist him because the earlier proceedings had not exonerated him or set aside the dismissal on the merits; the matter had been remitted only for reconsideration of the proportionality of punishment.

The Court also noted that he had accepted the subsequent punishment order and had not challenged the orders denying duty treatment.

Finding no error in the Single Judge’s decision, it dismissed the writ appeal without costs.