CAT Srinagar directs Govt to decide 9-year suspension of J&K employee within 3 months; warns suspension will stand quashed if delayed
10/12/2025
SRINAGAR, Dec 9: The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Srinagar Bench, has directed the Jammu and Kashmir administration to finally decide the long-pending suspension case of a Junior Statistical Assistant who has been under suspension since June 2016, observing that prolonged suspension becomes punitive and is contrary to settled law.
The order was passed by Mr. M.S. Latif, Member (Judicial) while disposing of T.A. No.1333/2021 titled Farhat Tasleem v. State of J&K & others.
The petitioner, placed under suspension vide order No. 386-DES of 2016 dated 11.06.2016, had challenged the action as arbitrary and dehors the rules. The Tribunal noted that the matter has remained pending for almost nine years, despite earlier High Court directions to review the suspension.
Referring to Rule 31 of the J&K Classification, Control and Appeal Rules, 1956, and relying on several judicial precedents including Ajay Kumar Choudhary vs Union of India, the Tribunal observed that suspension is intended to be temporary and cannot be prolonged without enquiry and proper justification. Prolonged suspension, the Tribunal held, becomes "no less than punitive".
Finding that no reply had been filed and the departmental decision had been indefinitely delayed, the Tribunal directed the respondents to decide the suspension case within three months. Importantly, the Tribunal ordered that if the decision is not taken within that period, the impugned suspension order shall be deemed to have been set aside and the petitioner reinstated, with consequential treatment of the intervening period as per law, including the period of unauthorised foreign absence.
Calling the case a "glaring example of protracted suspension", the Tribunal remarked that indefinite suspension violates principles of fair and reasonable procedure implicit in Article 21 of the Constitution and is against public interest.
The Transfer Application was accordingly disposed of.
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