Indore (Madhya Pradesh): In a significant relief to a group of assistant teachers, the Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court has quashed orders rejecting their claim for leave encashment of up to 300 days and directed the state authorities to reconsider the matter in accordance with the amended rules and the latest government circulars within two months.
Justice Deepak Khot passed the common order on June 25 while deciding a batch of writ petitions filed by assistant teachers, including Ravindra Kumar Mahoday, Shobha Trivedi, Pradeep Kumar Malviya and others, who had challenged the rejection of their representations seeking the benefit of 300 days' leave encashment instead of 240 days. The petitioners' counsel Abhinav Dhanodkar argued that an amendment to Rule 25 of the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1977, notified on July 28, 2018, along with a government circular dated March 8, 2019, entitled them to the enhanced benefit.
The High Court observed that the authorities had relied only on older finance department memorandums issued in 1991 and 2008 while sanctioning leave encashment for merely 50 days. The court noted that the impugned orders neither contained year-wise calculations of leave nor considered the 2018 amendment and the 2019 circular, rendering the decisions unsustainable.
The court further pointed out that maintaining leave accounts is the responsibility of the Head of the Department under Rule 14 of the Leave Rules and that the authorities failed to explain how the figure of 50 days had been arrived at.
Allowing the petitions, the High Court set aside the impugned orders and remanded the matter to the competent authorities for fresh consideration. It directed them to examine the petitioners' claims in light of the amended rules, the latest circulars and service records, and pass fresh orders within two months from the date of submission of the certified copy of the judgment. The petitioners have also been directed to submit their own year-wise leave calculations to facilitate the exercise.
