JUDGMENT

VENKATARAMIAH, J.:— The appellant was working as an Upper Division Clerk in the year 1975. He was placed under suspension by an order dated 25-7-1975 as a result of the institution of a criminal prosecution against him and he continues to remain under suspension till today. By an Order dated 4-8-1975 he was sanctioned subsistence allowance at the rate of 50 per cent of his salary last drawn. By a further order made on 6-5-1982 the subsistence allowance was reduced to 25 per cent of the 987 salary he was drawing on the date of suspension. The increments he would have earned from time to time and the periodical revisions of pay-scales were not taken into consideration in determining the subsistence allowance.

2. The charge-sheet was filed in the criminal case against the appellant in 1976 and the case was committed to the sessions, but the committal proceedings were quashed by the High Court in 1978. Then the proceedings again began before the Metropolitan magistrate in 1978. The case, however, has not yet come to an end.

3. Aggrieved by the denial of the salary and allowances due to him for a long time on account of the order of suspension and in particular the order fixing the subsistence allowance at 25 per cent of the salary which he was drawing at the time of suspension by the Order dated 6-5-1982, the appellant approached in the year 1988 the Central Administrative Tribunal (Ahmedabad Bench) for a direction to be issued to the Government to restore the original Order dated 4-8-1975 by which the subsistence allowance was fixed at 50 per cent of his salary. That petition was dismissed by the Tribunal by its Order dated 15-3-1988 on the ground that the appellant had approached the Tribunal more than five years after the date on which the Order dated 6-5-1982 had been passed apparently on the grounds of limitation set out in sub-section (2) of S. 21 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). Aggrieved by the order of the Tribunal, the appellant filed this appeal.

4. The question for consideration in this appeal by special leave is whether in a case of this nature, the Tribunal was right in holding that the application before it was barred by time. Sub-section (1) of S. 21 of the Act, no doubt, says that a Tribunal shall not admit an application in a case where a final order such as is mentioned in clause (a) of sub-section (2) of S. 20 has been made in connection with the grievance unless the application is made, within one year from the date on which such final order has been made, and in a case where an appeal or representation such as is mentioned in clause (b) of sub-section (2) of S. 20 has been made and a period of six months had expired thereafter without such final order having been made, within one year from the date of expiry of the said period of six months. Sub-section (2) of S. 21, however, provides that notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1) of S. 21 where the grievance in respect of which an application is made had arisen by reason by any order made at any time during the period of three years immediately preceding the date on which the jurisdiction, powers and authority of the Tribunal become exercisable under the Act in respect of the matter to which such order related, and no proceedings for the redressal of such grievance had been commenced before the said date before any High Court, the application shall be entertained by the Tribunal if it is made within the period referred to in clause (a), or, as the case may be, clause (b) of sub-section (1) or within a period of six months from the said date, whichever period expires later. Sub-section (3) of S. 21 further confers power on the Tribunal to condone the delay in certain circumstances if the applicant satisfies the Tribunal that he had sufficient cause for not making the application within such period.

5. In the present case the main grievance of the appellant was not that the Order dated 6-5-1982 by