Technical resignation benefits require an express request in the resignation application.

The applicant joined the Income Tax Department on 3 March 2014 and had earlier applied for several posts, including a teaching post in Uttar Pradesh.

He stated that he informed the Department of those applications shortly after joining and later obtained permission to attend counselling.

After being selected as a Mathematics Teacher in Agra, he applied to be relieved with lien so that he could take up the post.

The Department accepted his resignation and relieved him with effect from 28 April 2016.

The applicant joined the teaching post the next day and subsequently sought to return to the Income Tax Department, claiming that his departure should have been treated as a technical resignation with lien.

The Tribunal noted that he had not produced an application specifically requesting technical resignation and had not supplied information sought by the Department to process that request.

He sought quashing of the resignation-acceptance order and a direction permitting him to rejoin with seniority and consequential benefits.

Whether the applicant’s resignation was required to be treated as a technical resignation, preserving his past service and lien, so as to entitle him to rejoin the Income Tax Department.

Whether the applicant remained entitled to a lien and rejoining after the prescribed period had elapsed.

The Tribunal relied on DoPT O.M. No. 13/24/92-Estt.(Pay-I), dated 22 January 1993, under which the benefit of past service on joining another Government appointment is subject to conditions including that the employee informed the department of the relevant application on joining, specifically requested that the resignation be treated as a technical resignation, and that the accepting authority was satisfied the application would have been forwarded through proper channel.

It also considered DoPT O.M. No. 28020/1/2010-Estt.(C), dated 26 December 2013, concerning lien: lien may generally be retained for two years after joining the new post, with a possible further year subject to the applicable requirements; a simple resignation, without the technical-resignation treatment, entails forfeiture of past service.

No statute or judicial precedent was identified as the basis of the decision.

Although the applicant had informed the Department in 2014 of his applications and had sought permission and relief with lien in 2016, the Tribunal found that his applications did not specifically request acceptance of a technical resignation.

The applicant also failed to produce a copy of any such request or to establish that the word “resignation” in the acceptance order had been entered in error.

Although the Department asked him to provide information to support processing a technical-resignation request, the record did not show that he supplied it.

The Tribunal therefore found insufficient evidence that the resignation satisfied the conditions for technical-resignation treatment.

It further held that the claimed lien could not support rejoining after the applicable two- or three-year period had expired.

It dismissed the OA, including the requests to set aside the resignation-acceptance order and to direct his rejoining with seniority and consequential benefits, with no order as to costs.