Chennai, Sep 20 (PTI) There may be different eventualities due to which an employee may abstain from duty, including compelling circumstances beyond his control like illness, accidents, hospitalisation, but in such cases, the employee cannot be held guilty of failure to devotion to duty or behaviour unbecoming of a government servant, the Madras High Court has held.

Also Read | Sony PS5 Restock in India: PlayStation 5 To Be Available for Pre-Order on September 26, 2022.

Being absent from duty without any application or prior permission may amount to unauthorised absence, but it does not always mean willful.

Also Read | TikTok's BeReal Clone App Now Available As Standalone App Outside the US.

Justice S M Subramaniam made the observation while setting aside the orders of the police higher ups dismissing a constable from service for unauthorised absence.

A Dharmendra was appointed as Grade-II constable in 2013. He was sanctioned casual leave for two days in January 2014. He did not report for duty after availing the two days leave, instead he went on medical leave for 30 days from January 29 and extended the same in a piecemeal and thus availed 55 days medical leave. He was declared as deserter and removed from service by a final order passed in May, 2017.

Hence, the present petition .

Holding that the punishment was certainly excessive and disproportionate to the proved charges, the judge set aside the dismissal order and ordered his reinstatement but without backwages. The authorities are entitled to impose any other lesser punishment, the judge added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)