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Dr. Mrs. Suman V. Jain vs. Marwadi Sammelan through its Secretary and Others

Not available · 2024 INSC 127Decided 20 Feb 2024
Not available
Justice J.K. Maheshwari

Background

Dr. Suman V. Jain, a college employee, had tendered a prospective resignation but sought to withdraw it before its effective date. The Marwadi Sammelan Trust rejected her withdrawal request, treating her as having resigned. She challenged this before the Mumbai University and College Tribunal, then the Bombay High Court in a writ petition, and then in appeal before the High Court's Division Bench, losing at every stage, largely on the finding that there was an implied understanding preventing withdrawal of the resignation. She then approached the Supreme Court. In the interim, she had joined another institution (M.M.P. Shah College) and later reached the age of superannuation in 2015.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and set aside the orders of the College Tribunal and the High Court, holding that a prospective resignation can lawfully be withdrawn before its effective date and that the Trust had wrongly rejected her withdrawal. Since the appellant had already superannuated and moved on to another institution, the Court could not restore her to active duty at the Trust, and it also declined to permit any belated disciplinary action against her after a lapse of over 20 years. Instead, it directed the Trust to regularize her service for the period between the wrongful treatment of her resignation (24.09.2003) and her joining the new institution (01.10.2007), treating it as duty period for pension purposes (though without back-wages, applying the "no work no pay" principle), and directed that her pension and retiral benefits be computed and paid within four months, with 7% interest for any delay.

Lesson Learnt

An employee's prospective resignation can be validly withdrawn any time before it actually takes effect, unless there is a genuine agreement to the contrary; and even where reinstatement is no longer practically possible due to the passage of time, courts can still ensure fairness by ordering that the wrongfully-lost service period be counted for pension and retiral benefits.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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