HC quashes order denying employee salary over administrative lapse
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Shimla, August 16
Himachal Pradesh High Court has quashed an order under which the period of absence of a government employee was treated as “leave of the kind due”, holding that an employee cannot be made to suffer for an administrative lapse on the part of the department.
Justice Jiya Lal Bhardwaj passed the order recently while allowing a petition filed by Anil Kumari, who was working as Principal in a Government Senior Secondary School and was transferred to different stations in 2008.
The court directed the State authorities to release her salary for the period from August 1, 2008 to January 8, 2009, observing that she could not join at the transferred places because other employees, who had also been transferred, had already joined there. The respondents did not dispute this factual position.
The petitioner was initially transferred to the office of the Deputy Director Elementary Education, Hamirpur, as Deputy District Education Officer and joined there. Within 13 days, she was transferred to GSSS Tarwar in Bilaspur district. When she went to join, another transferred incumbent had already joined at the school.
She was subsequently adjusted at GSSS Dumehar, Bilaspur, but again found that another Principal had already joined there. She eventually joined the school on January 9, 2009.
The High Court observed that it was the responsibility of the department to ensure that the post to which an employee was transferred was vacant and that no other person had already been posted there. The court noted that the petitioner had complied with the transfer orders and the circumstances preventing her from joining were beyond her control.
The court also rejected the State’s reliance on government instructions issued on September 25, 2014, holding that those instructions could not be applied to the petitioner’s case relating to the period in 2008. It observed that the department had not disputed that the petitioner had gone to join at the stations to which she was transferred.
The petitioner had earlier approached the High Court, which on October 23, 2009, had directed the respondents to pay her salary within four weeks. However, the department subsequently passed an office order dated December 18, 2014, regularising the period of absence subject to “leave of the kind due”.
The High Court held that once the petitioner was prevented from joining because other transferred employees had already occupied the posts, she could not be denied salary. It accordingly quashed the December 18, 2014 order to the extent that it treated the intervening period as leave of the kind due.
The court directed the respondents to pay the petitioner’s salary for the entire period from August 1, 2008 to January 8, 2009 within three months from the date of the judgment.
It further ordered that if the salary is not paid within the stipulated three months, the petitioner shall be entitled to interest at the rate of six per cent per annum on the amount from the date of the judgment until actual payment. The petition was accordingly allowed, with no order as to costs.
The judgment was pronounced on August 5, 2026.
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