‘Employee not entitled to full pay for suspension period’

The petitioner, Purnendu Biswas (65), a retired engineer and ship surveyor, who was acquitted of a criminal charge, had submitted that the Centre should treat his suspension period as a duty period and pay salary and allowances for the entire suspension period between July 7, 1992, and October 17, 2003, because he was acquitted.

The petitioner contended that his retirement benefits should be revised along with arrears of pension arising thereon and consequential service benefits. Countering this, the Centre submitted that the petitioner was caught red-handed by the CBI while accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000. The period of suspension would be treated only as “period not spent on duty” and he was not entitled to back wages, the counsel representing the Centre contended.

The bench comprising Judicial Member P Madhavan and Administrative Member T Jacob, before whom the matter came up, agreed to this and dismissed the petition. “Centre had invited our attention to the various decisions of the Supremen Court holding that ‘the employee does not automatically become entitled to full pay and allowances for suspension period’. He was absent from duty for reasons of his own involvement in misconduct,” the tribunal added.