'No Work, No Pay' Is Unsustainable If Employee Is Not At Fault: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court, in a recent case hearing, held that it is unlawful to apply the ‘No Work, No Pay’ principle when an employee is not at fault but is prevented from performing office duties. The Madurai bench of the high court ordered the respondents to pay the petitioner (C. Makarand) full retirement benefits and quashed the order passed by the Tahsildar earlier.

Brief Background

C. Makarand started his service as a Village Thalaiyari of Muthu Nagaiahapuram on March 20, 1983. At the time of joining, he submitted his document, including the date of birth proof. However, in 2015, he realised that his date of birth was wrongly mentioned in the records and, due to that, his retirement fell at an early date, April 30, 2018.

It is because his date of birth in the records was January 28, 1958, instead of his actual DoB, which is March 23, 1961.

When he applied for correction in the details to authorities, his request was rejected. The reason was that correction is allowed only within five years of joining, and that period has passed. However, in 2015, he received a favourable order from a competent civil court for DOB correction and service continuation based on his actual DoB.

In 2016, he was promoted to the VAO role and continued working. However, after the earlier (erroneous) date of retirement passed, he was not reinstated until the high court’s division bench order passed in 2019. Only then, he was reinstated on March 19, 2019. He finally retired on March 31, 2019.

However, his ordeal did not stop with his retirement. The petitioner had to request many times for disbursement of his full retirement benefits, but he received no response from the authorities. Finally, the authorities rejected his retirement benefits for the period he did not work (from February 1, 2018, to March 18, 2019)

The petitioner argued that he was not allowed to work and it was not his fault. Therefore, the retirement benefits should not be stopped. Respondents’ side argued that the petitioner didn’t work during this period (February 1, 2018, to March 18, 2019). That is why they had adhered to the ‘no work, no pay’ principle, and notionally fixed his salary at a village assistant cadre to determine his pension after regularising his absence.

Court’s Observation:

The court observed that the petitioner was willing to work but was prevented from performing his duties. Thus, he was not at fault.

It held, “The petitioner is not at fault for not continuing in service as the Village Administrative Officer from 01.02.2018 to 18.03.2019. The respondents cannot take a stand that he did not serve during the said period and apply the ‘no work no pay’ principle.”

The Judgement:

Justice Battu Devanand held, “It can never be stated that the petitioner was at fault during that period by not doing any office work. He should not be penalized without any payment of salary on the plea of ‘no work no pay’.”

He ordered the authorities to give the petitioner all retirement benefits considering that he had worked for the entire service period.

“The Court, in a given case, may hold that the person was willing to work but was illegally and unlawfully not allowed to do so. The Court may in the circumstances, direct the Authority to grant him all benefits considering ‘as if he had worked”, the court held.

It quashed the impugned order passed by Tahsildar in 2023 and directed the authorities to grant full retirement benefits, including from February 1, 2018, to March 18, 2019, within four weeks.