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Dr. Sushil Kumar Tripathi v. Jagadguru Ram Bhadracharya Handicapped University & Anr.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 692Decided 29 Oct 2021
Civil Appeal No. 6255 of 2021
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice Vikram Nath · Justice B.V. Nagarathna

Background

The appellant was appointed in 2004 as an Assistant Professor at a UGC-funded university under the Tenth Five Year Plan. After he objected to an unauthorised monthly salary deduction, the university terminated his services in 2007, claiming his post was tied only to the Tenth Plan and had been abolished, even though the university had simultaneously told the UGC it needed the same post continued into the Eleventh Plan. His writ petition was dismissed by the Allahabad High Court. Years later, on this Court's direction, a UGC Expert Committee re-examined his case using RTI-obtained documents and found the termination "perverse and incorrect," since other similarly placed Tenth Plan teachers had all been made permanent and the department had never actually been abolished.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, holding that the university's own contemporaneous correspondence contradicted its claim that the appellant's post was abolished: it had told the UGC the department was continuing with adequate student strength and sought continued funding for the very post the appellant held. The Court relied heavily on the UGC's own documented findings (based on the university's RTI admissions) that all other Tenth Plan appointees had been made permanent except the appellant, and that his appointment letter did not actually say his post was contractual or time-limited. The Court directed the university to reinstate the appellant and credit him with continuity of service for pension and retirement benefits, but denied back pay for the period he did not work, applying the "no work, no pay" principle.

Lesson Learnt

An employer's own contemporaneous written communications (here, letters to its funding body) can be used against it to disprove a later claim that a post was eliminated, and where regulatory bodies or inquiry committees have already found selective, inconsistent treatment of a single employee based on documented facts, courts will act on that finding to grant reinstatement.

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

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