CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL CHENNAI BENCH Dated this the 23^rd day of January, Two Thousand Twenty Six CORAM :

HON'BLE MR M. SWAMINATHAN, JUDICIAL MEMBER E. Parthiban Senior Technical Officer -3, CSIR -Structural Engineering Research Centre, (Council of Scientific & Industrial Research)

CSIR Road, Taramani, Chennai. .. Applicant By Advocate M/s. C. P. Goutham Vs.

The Director & Disciplinary Authority CSIR Structural Engineering Research Centre, (Council of Scientific & Industrial Research)

CSIR Road, Taramani, Chennai. .. Respondent By Advocate Mr. M. Kishore Kumar, SPC

ORAL ORDER

(Pronounced by Hon'ble Mr. M. Swaminathan, Judicial Member )

Aggrieved by the withholding of Earned Leave Encashment by the impugned order, dated 17.06.2025, the applicant has filed the OA for quashing the said order and for a direction to the respondents to sanction and pay Earned Leave Encashment and Group Insurance to the applicant within a time frame to be fixed by this Tribunal in light of the judgment in OA No.388/2024, dated 11.09.2024 and pass such other order or orders as may be deemed fit and thus render justice.

2. Brief facts of the case as submitted by the applicants are as follows: The Applicant belongs to Scheduled Tribe Community and obtained a case Certificate from the Tahsildar, Saidapet in July 1980. His close relatives also possess caste certificates describing them as belonging to Scheduled Tribe. Initially, he was appointed as House Keeper in April, 1990 under the Respondent organization. Subsequently the applicant was converted to the Technical cadre and got successive promotions. In the year 2019 the applicant promoted as Senior Technical Officer – 3 with retrospective from 13.04.2015. The applicant was due to retire on 31.05.2023. While so, by the order dated 31.05.2023, the last day of his service, he was placed under suspension based on the letter issued by the \Vigilance Cell that he was not cooperating with the inquiry in respect of verification of his case status. He further submits that in terms of the OMs issued by the Government of India and also the judgments of the Hon'ble High Cought, verification of community status ought to have been made immediately after a person enters service and not at the fag end of his service. The objection raised by he applicants was erroneously assumed to be an act of non-cooperation. He was also issued with a Charge Memo, dated 30.06.2023. Challenging the suspension as well as Charge Memo, the applicant filed OA No.557 of 2023 and OA No.617 of 2023, respectively and both are pending before this Tribunal. The applicant made representation seeking provisional pension and earned leave encashment. The respondent sanctioned only provisional pension but withheld the Earned Leave Encashment. Hence the present OA for the aforementioned relief.

3. When the matter is taken up for hearing, the learned counsel for the applicant submitted that the retention of earned leave encashment benefits by the respondent is illegal and unjustified. He further submitted that Earned leave encashment is a benefit which a Government servant accrues by foregoing the leave admissible to him. Therefore, in terms of the Leave Rules, the Government employee can accumulate earned leave and encash the same at the time of superannuation, subject to a maximum of 10 months. He further submitted that Earned Leave Encashment is a benefit which cannot be withheld or stopped. He also brought to the notice of the Tribunal that in an identical case of an employee of the same Institute, this Tribunal in OA No.388 of 2023 granted the relief vide its order, dated 11.09.2024. The case of the applicant falls squarely within the ration of the order enunciated by this Tribunal. Therefore he prayed for the relief sought in the present OA.

4. Per contra, the learned counsel for the respondents opposed the submission of the applicant by relying upon the reply statement filed by the respondents. He submitted that the Department of Pension & Pen