Tribunal orders granting relief beyond pleaded claims without examining pleadings are liable to be set aside.

The petitioner, New Delhi Municipal Council, challenged the Central Administrative Tribunal’s order dated 28 November 2025, by which the respondents’ Original Application was disposed of in terms of paragraphs 20–22 of the Tribunal’s earlier judgment dated 5 March 2025 in OA No. 3597/2019, subject to the outcome of pending proceedings before the Delhi High Court.

The earlier Tribunal directions treated the contractual Junior Engineers (Civil) as entitled to implementation of the resolution dated 27 August 2014, notional pay fixation, consequential benefits, and protection from displacement through direct recruitment until regularization.

The petitioner contended that the respondents had expressly abandoned their claim for regularization in their pleadings and that the Tribunal therefore granted relief beyond the relief sought.

The respondents argued that, on a holistic reading of the Original Application, no such abandonment had occurred and that subsequent Supreme Court decisions, particularly Jaggo, supported their claim for regularization.

The High Court found that the Tribunal had adopted the earlier judgment without examining the pleadings in the respondents’ Original Application.

Whether the Tribunal erred in granting or adopting directions relating to regularization without examining whether the respondents had expressly abandoned that relief in their pleadings.

Whether the Tribunal’s mechanical reliance on paragraphs 20–22 of its earlier judgment, without independent consideration of the pleadings and issues in the respondents’ Original Application, warranted interference and remand.

A court or tribunal must adjudicate the dispute on the basis of the pleadings and reliefs sought by the parties and cannot grant relief in excess of the case pleaded without properly examining the relevant pleadings.

An appellate or writ court may set aside an order and remand the matter where the adjudicating authority has failed to consider material pleadings or has disposed of the matter mechanically.

The Tribunal’s earlier decision relied on the Supreme Court’s decisions in Jaggo v. Union of India, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 3826, Vinod Kumar v. Union of India, (2024) 9 SCC 327, and Shripal v. State, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 221, as well as the Delhi High Court’s decision in Government of NCT of Delhi v. Ruchi, W.P.(C) 1093/2025, decided on 29 January 2025, in relation to relief for long-serving contractual employees.

However, the High Court did not express any final view on the applicability of those authorities to the respondents’ claims.

The High Court noted that the Tribunal had simply adopted paragraphs 20–22 of its earlier decision, which included directions for regularization, without determining whether the respondents’ pleadings contained or excluded such a claim.

Since the petitioner specifically relied on an alleged express abandonment of regularization, and the respondents disputed that interpretation, the issue required examination of the Original Application rather than mechanical application of the earlier judgment.

The respondents’ reliance on Jaggo and subsequent authorities did not cure this procedural defect, particularly as the Original Application had not been amended after those decisions were delivered.

Without deciding the competing interpretations or the merits of the entitlement to regularization, the Court held that reconsideration by the Tribunal was necessary and left all factual and legal issues open.

The Tribunal was directed to decide the matter uninfluenced by the impugned order, with all questions of fact and law remaining open.

The parties were directed to appear before the Tribunal on 18 August 2026, with no adjournment to be sought on that date, and the Tribunal was requested to dispose of the seven-year-old matter expeditiously.

There was no order as to costs.