VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III - AP Online

DECISION - 332
675
was mainly one relating to inter se seniority, the Supreme Court
observed: “We also find that many of the officers in the cadre rush to
the court or the tribunal too often and interim orders are made by the
court to hold up the hands of the State Government in giving effect to
the Rules. Interim orders in such matters should not ordinarily be
made as the position can always be rectified when judgment is
rendered”.
(332)
Penalty — withholding increments with cumulative effect
Withholding increment with cumulative effect
amounts to reduction to a lower stage in time scale
of pay. It is a major penalty and imposition without
inquiry, illegal.
Kulwant Singh Gill vs. State of Punjab,
1990(6) SLR SC 73
A 3-judge Bench of the Supreme Court considered the
question whether stoppage of two increments with cumulative effect
is a major penalty, in an appeal by an Inspector, Food and Supplies
against the judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and
observed as follows: “Withholding of increments of pay simplicitor
without any hedge over it certainly comes within the meaning of Rule
5(iv) of the Rules (Punjab Civil Services (Punishment and Appeal)
Rules). But when penalty was imposed withholding two increments
i.e. for two years with cumulative effect, it would indisputably mean
that the two increments earned by the employee were cut off as a
measure of penalty for ever in his upward march of earning higher
scale of pay. In other words the clock starts working from that stage
afresh. The insidious effect of the impugned order by necessary
implication, is that the appellant employee is reduced in his timescale
by two places and it is in perpetuity during the rest of the tenure
of his service with a direction that two years’ increments would not
be counted in his time-scale of pay as a measure of penalty. The
words are the skin to