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Jaya Bhattacharya v. State of West Bengal

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 270Decided 25 Feb 2025
Civil Appeal(s) arising out of SLP (C) No(s). 8850-8852 of 2024
Justice B.R. Gavai · Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra

Background

The appellant joined government service in West Bengal in 1986 but remained absent from duty for long stretches, including a period of about 20 years, after complaining she had been prevented from signing the attendance register and denied the chance to work. Over roughly 25 years, her case wound through the State Administrative Tribunal and the High Court multiple times; eventually her long absence was treated as "extraordinary leave" and her service was regularized, but she was denied leave salary and, later, pension, on the basis that this extraordinary leave period did not count as qualifying service. Her writ petition challenging the pension denial was dismissed for non-prosecution, and subsequent review and restoration attempts also failed, bringing the matter to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that despite an earlier Tribunal order directing the authorities to hold a proper departmental inquiry into whether the appellant had actually been prevented from performing her duties, no such inquiry was ever conducted. It held that the government could not simply refuse to hold the ordered inquiry and then use the appellant's inability to independently prove her claims against her: the burden could not be shifted onto her in that way. Since her service had already been regularized (treating the disputed period as extraordinary leave rather than a break in service), the Court held that period could not simultaneously be used to deny her pension. It directed the authorities to finalise her pension within three months, though it denied her any back-pay arrears for the disputed period.

Lesson Learnt

A government employer cannot deny an employee's pension by treating a period as unauthorised absence if it never actually held the departmental inquiry it was ordered to conduct to establish that fact: the burden of proving misconduct rests with the employer, not the employee.

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

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