The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has put a stay on the retirement of Dr S C Bansal, assistant professor of radio diagnosis at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) here on Wednesday. The stay has come as a major setback for the PGI director, Dr Jagat Ram, who had issued the retirement order.
Professor Bansal had mentioned in the application challenging the retirement order that the age of superannuation of an assistant professor was 65 years and he had turned 62 on January 15 this year. So, he was yet to attain the age of retirement as he had been redesignated assistant professor on September 5, 2016. The case is now slated to come up for hearing on July 17.
Passing the order, the tribunal said that if the competent authority “intends to revert the applicant to the post of lecturer and then retire him in that eventuality, it was incumbent upon the authority to issue show-cause notice to provide the applicant an opportunity to be heard, in order to observe the principals of natural justice”.
Professor Bansal had stated in the application that he was abruptly retired on May 31, this year, by the director, who is not the competent authority. He also said that he had joined as lecturer (medical technology) on an ad hoc basis and continued to work as such till November 2, 1993.Thereafter, he was appointed lecturer (medical technology) and given a letter of appointment on November 2, 1993. He was then re-designated assistant professor (non-medical).
Pronouncing the order, the tribunal held, “It is not a matter of dispute that on recommendations of the governing body and with the approval of the institute body, the post of lecturer (medical technology) held by the applicant was re-designated as assistant professor (non-medical) in the payscale of assistant professor with orders dated September 5, 2016. Once the post of the applicant was redesignated by the governing body, the approval of the institute body then the director of the institute becomes functus officio and a very brief impunged order passed by him, retiring the applicant would become inoperative.”
