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Retired Armed Forces Need Not Apply Within One Year for Ex-Serviceman Status:
The has ruled that retired Armed Forces personnel who apply for re-employment after completing their are entitled to be treated as , rejecting a narrow interpretation of government memoranda that would have denied them benefits. A Division Bench comprising Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Vinod Kumar upheld the order of the in favour of a retired medical officer whose candidature for a professor post was cancelled by the .
The Dispute: An IAF Veteran’s Selection Axed
GP Capt. Jagdish Chandra Sharma (Retd.), a medical officer who superannuated from the on , had applied for the post of Teaching Faculty Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at , pursuant to an advertisement issued in . After interviews held between 1 October and , his name appeared at serial number 3 in the provisional selection list published on . However, on , the ESIC sent him a cryptic one-page letter cancelling his candidature.
The sole ground stated in the cancellation letter was that Sharma “is not fulfilling eligibility criteria for grant of as an ex-serviceman candidate.” The ESIC relied on Office Memoranda (OMs) dated and , issued by the , which, according to the corporation, required Armed Forces personnel to apply for re-employment “within a period of one year before completing the ” to qualify as .
Aggrieved, Sharma approached the CAT, which set aside the cancellation and directed his . The ESIC then challenged that decision in the .
Court Rejects Narrow Reading of DOPT Memorandum
The Court examined , which grants to , and the DOPT OM dated . The OM stated that a candidate working in the Armed Forces becomes eligible to apply for civil posts only when he completes the “prescribed period” of service (20 years for this case) within one year from the last date of application.
The critical distinction the Court drew was between those still in service and those already retired. “The intention of requiring that the applicant should have had less than a year to retire was obviously to deter persons who were in service and were not retiring in the near future to seek benefits,” the Bench observed. “Persons who had already retired from the Armed Forces were obviously ESMs.”
Since Sharma applied for regular recruitment after he had completed 20 years of service and had already retired, the restriction could not apply to him. “Inasmuch as the respondent had applied for regular recruitment as Professor in the ESIC Hospital after he had completed his prescribed period in the IAF, it would not be correct to hold that he was not an ,” the Court noted.
No Allowed
The Court also applied the well-established principle from that a decision must stand or fall on the reasons given in the order itself. The ESIC’s cancellation letter mentioned only the ground; it could not later add new reasons, such as any alleged non-compliance with other service conditions. “The only ground on which the respondent’s candidature was cancelled was that he did not qualify for . The only ground on which his entitlement to was disputed was that he was not an . The only ground on which it was contended that he was not an was that he did not satisfy the DOPT OM dated . We have found that he was not hit by the ,” the judgment succinctly concluded.
Not a Case of of Contract Employment
The ESIC argued that Sharma had already been appointed on a on , and that directing would amount to in violation of . The Court disagreed, holding that his appointment on contract did not extinguish his independent right to be considered under the regular selection process. “This is not a case of of a contract employment,” the Bench clarified. “Even though the respondent was appointed on contract basis, his independent right to have been appointed on regular basis pursuant to the interview… survived.”
Final Relief and Timeline
Upholding the CAT’s direction, the ordered the ESIC to give Sharma as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at par with other candidates selected through the same process. However, since Sharma has already crossed the for regular employees, he cannot actually be reinstated. Instead, the Court directed the corporation to re-fix his pay as a regular employee and recompute his accordingly. All arrears must be disbursed within four weeks from , the date of judgment.
The ruling reinforces the principle that who have completed their full service and retired are not subject to artificial time-limits that were intended only for those still serving. It also reiterates that administrative decisions must be judged solely on the reasons recorded at the time they are made.
