Rajasthan High Court quashes CAT order with cost, grants postal assistant actual benefits from 2015

Jaipur: The Rajasthan High Court has quashed an order of the Central Administrative Tribunal dismissing a Gramin Dak Sevak’s claim to appointment as a Postal Assistant with a cost of Rs. 5,000, holding that the Department of Posts cannot take benefit of its own illegal act after letting a selected candidate languish for ten years.

A division bench of Justice Inderjeet Singh and Justice Ravi Chirania, in a judgment authored by Justice Chirania, set aside the CAT’s dismissal order dated 08.11.2024 and directed that the petitioner be granted the difference in pay-scale between his existing Gramin Dak Sevak post and the Postal Assistant post from 17.01.2015 — the date on which similarly selected candidates were actually appointed.

Censuring the conduct of the Department, the bench observed:

“Despite clearing the selection process, act of not appointing on the post in question i.e. Postal Assistant in Post Offices (P.A.P.O.) is seriously illegal. Further, first stating false and incorrect statements on oath before the learned Tribunal, but first time, surprisingly, now the respondents have admitted the fact about the correctness of the R.T.I. document dated 25.05.2015. Therefore, they cannot be allowed to take benefit of their own serious illegal act. They have wasted precious ten years of the petitioner’s dedicated service in unwanted legal battle.”

The petition under Articles 226 and 227 had been moved by Bharat Lal Verma, a Gramin Dak Sevak Branch Post Master posted at the Jolanda (Khirni) Branch Post Office, Sawai Madhopur, who had assailed the Tribunal’s order in Original Application No. 142/2015. The OA had been dismissed by the CAT on 08.11.2024 with a cost of Rs. 5,000 — recorded by the Tribunal as imposed “for wasting the precious time of the learned Tribunal and the machinery involved therein”.

Appearing for the petitioner, Mr. Mukesh Kumar Agarwal and Mr. Devanshu Agarwal submitted that the Tribunal had dismissed the OA without examining the documents on record or the fact that the petitioner had actually cleared the recruitment process — as confirmed by the respondents themselves in their own response to an R.T.I. application dated 25.05.2015 — but was never appointed to the advertised Postal Assistant post.

Counsel also placed reliance on the Division Bench judgment of the Delhi High Court in Govt. of NCT of Delhi v. Sh. Rakesh Beniwal, 2014 SCC OnLine Del 3944, on the question of notional and actual financial benefits payable to a candidate who is wrongfully denied appointment notwithstanding due selection.

For the respondents, Mr. Ashish Kumar appeared on behalf of the Union of India and the Department of Posts.

During the pendency of the writ petition, the respondents themselves issued an appointment order dated 28.11.2025 in favour of the petitioner and an addendum dated 09.12.2025, the latter stipulating that the appointment would be “notional with effect from 17.01.2015 and actual with effect from the date of assumption of charge of the post”. The petitioner’s grievance distilled to that addendum: he sought actual financial benefits — pay-scale, seniority and continuity — from the original selection date, not merely the date he ultimately took charge.

Examining the record, the bench took particular note of the fact that the respondents had earlier filed counter affidavits on oath before the Tribunal disputing the petitioner’s selection, but had ultimately conceded the correctness of the R.T.I. document dated 25.05.2015 — the very document confirming his selection — only at this late stage. The Department, the bench held, could not be permitted to derive any benefit from its own conduct.

Applying the principles in Rakesh Beniwal (supra), the Court held that the petitioner was entitled to the difference in pay-scale between the Gramin Dak Sevak post he was occupying and the Postal Assistant post he ought to have been appointed to, with effect from 17.01.2015. Consequential service benefits, including seniority, were ordered to follow on the same date.

The addendum dated 09.12.2025, to the extent it confined actual benefits to a later date, was quashed and set aside. The CAT’s order dismissing the OA with cost was also quashed.

Allowing the writ petition, the Court directed that all consequential service and financial benefits be granted to the petitioner from 17.01.2015 in terms of Rakesh Beniwal. There was no order as to costs. The judgment was reserved on 25.03.2026 and pronounced on 14.05.2026.

Title: Bharat Lal Verma v. Union of India & Ors.

Case No.: D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 7412/2025

Counsel for petitioner: Mr. Mukesh Kumar Agarwal, Mr. Devanshu Agarwal

Counsel for respondents: Mr. Ashish Kumar