Intervening Holiday Can’t Itself Defeat Continuity Of Service Or Postpone Accrual Of Admissible Service Benefit: Allahabad High Court

The petitioners approached the High Court seeking a direction to the respondent authorities to forthwith refix the salary of the petitioners in accordance with the communication of the Finance Controller, Board of Basic Education, UP, Prayagraj, within a period to be specified by the Court by taking into account the increment of the petitioners and thereafter to refix the salary accordingly.

The Single Bench of Justice Manju Rani Chauhan held, “An increment is not a bounty bestowed at the discretion of the employer; it is a service benefit regulated by the applicable service rules and the Government Orders issued thereunder. Once the qualifying period prescribed for its accrual is completed, the employee becomes entitled to its benefit in accordance with the governing rules. Consequently, the computation of such qualifying service must commence from the legally recognised date of appointment or commencement of service and cannot be artificially postponed merely because the appointee, for reasons beyond his control, could enter upon actual physical service only on the next working day.”

“The conclusion aforesaid is confined to the factual and legal matrix of the present case. It does not lay down a proposition that the date of appointment would invariably and in every circumstance prevail over the date of joining. The governing statute and the valid rules framed thereunder remain paramount. What is held is that, where the appointment stood validly made, the intervening day was a public holiday, and the appointee joined on the next available working day in accordance with the applicable Government Orders, such intervening holiday cannot, by itself, be permitted to defeat the continuity of service or to postpone the accrual of an otherwise admissible service benefit”, it added.

Advocate Ashish Pandey represented the Petitioner while Advocate Ashish Kumar (Nagvanshi) represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The case as set up by the petitioners was that they were appointed as Assistant Teachers by the concerned Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Pilibhit, in 2016. It was submitted that July 1, 2016 was a public holiday on account of being the last Friday of Ramzan and so the petitioners could not join their respective posts on the said date. However, pursuant to the appointment order dated June 28, 2016, the petitioners submitted their joining on July 2, 2016 and accordingly commenced their service pursuant to the said appointment. The petitioners claimed that at the time of their appointment, they were governed by the pay scale recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission, but the said pay structure was subsequently affected by the Government Order pursuant to which the pay admissible to the petitioners was required to be determined and regulated in accordance with the revised provisions contained therein. In making the pay fixation, the first increment in their pay scale was sanctioned from July 1, 2017, but the petitioners claimed that they were entitled to fixation of first increment on January 1, 2017.

Arguments

The petitioners submitted that they were appointed on June 28, 2016, and July 1, 2016 was a public holiday, on account of which they could not join on the said date and accordingly submitted their joining on July 2, 2016. As per the petitioners, their joining on the next working day, being occasioned solely by the intervening public holiday, could not deprive them of the benefit of the increment otherwise admissible to them under the applicable Government Orders.

Reasoning

On a perusal of the appointment order issued in favour of the petitioners, the Bench noted that the appointment of the petitioners was to become effective only upon their assuming charge at the institution. “The language employed in the appointment order, and the stipulations contained therein, are clear and binding upon the petitioners. Having accepted their appointments subject to the aforesaid terms and conditions, the petitioners cannot now seek to contend otherwise or set up a claim contrary to the express terms of their appointment orders. Such a claim, being inconsistent with the conditions of appointment accepted by the petitioners themselves, is wholly unjustified and cannot be sustained”, it added.

Considering that the petitioners assumed charge on July 2, 2016, the Bench held that they would fall within the category of employees who received appointment during the period between July 2 and January 1, both days inclusive. “Consequently, in terms of paragraph 8(2) of the Government Order dated 22.12.2016, the petitioners are not entitled to the annual increment with effect from 01.01.2017; rather, the increment would become admissible on 01.07.2017”, it clarified.

The Bench held that the real test is the legally recognised commencement of service for the purpose of the particular benefit, and not the mechanical comparison of the dates appearing on the appointment letter and the joining report. According to the Bench, the respondents, while considering the claim of the Assistant Teachers, were required to examine the entire statutory and executive framework governing their appointment, the effect of the public holiday on 1 July 2016, the Government Orders applicable to such cases, and the subsequent clarifications issued by the competent authority. “The benefit cannot be withheld by adopting an interpretation which penalises the appointees for a circumstance which was neither occasioned by them nor capable of being avoided by them”, it stated.

The Bench thus disposed of the petition with the direction to the competent authority to consider and decide the individual representations, submitted by the petitioners, specifically indicating their respective dates of appointment, dates of joining, and the circumstances in which they could not join on the first day of the relevant month. “Upon receipt of such representations, the competent authority shall examine the claim of each petitioner in the light of the statutory provisions, the applicable Government”, it ordered.

Cause Title: Seema Ray and 3 others v. State of U.P. and 5 others (Neutral Citation: 2026:DHC:178110)

Appearance

Petitioner: Sr. Advocate Siddharth Khare, Advocates Ashish Pandey, Durga Shanker Mishra, Man Bahadur Singh, Neeraj Shukla, Nirbhay Singh, Rajesh Kumar Verma, Saurabh Kumar, Tanuj Shahi

Respondent: Advocates Ashish Kumar (Nagvanshi), Ashok Kumar Singh, Ashutosh Kumar Mishra, Bhanu Pratap Singh Kachhawah, Chief Standing Counsel Bipin Bihari Pandey, Advocates Girijesh Kumar Tripathi, Hare Ram, Harsh Vardhan Gupta, Jay Prakash Singh, Manvendra Singh, Nagendra Kumar Pandey, Rajesh Khare, Rama Nand Pandey, Ratan Deep Mishra, Rishu Mishra, Sanjay Kumar Singh, Shailendra Singh, Shashi Kant Srivastava, Shashi Prakash Singh, Shivendra Kumar Singh, Shivendra Singh Bhadauria, Sunil Kumar Dubey, Udit Chandra, Yatindra

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