Leave without pay for research work abroad is not a break in service: Madras HC

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered the Bharathiyar University to consider the one-year-period of research done abroad by a professor as service period and provide him consequential service benefits.

Justice N Anand Venkatesh recently passed the orders on a petition filed by R Rakkiyappan, a faculty member of Mathematics department. The petitioner had joined as assistant professor and availed of one-year leave on loss of pay from June 2017 to May 2018 for research work in Korea. Even though the leave was taken on loss of pay, such period could not be considered as break in service as per the Tamil Nadu Leave Rules, 1933, submitted advocate Kavitha Rameshwar, counsel for the petitioner.

The judge pointed out that neither Tamil Nadu Leave Rules nor the 1991 G.O. provide for construing leave without pay as “break in service”. “In the instant case, there is no dispute with regard to the fact that the petitioner went abroad to work as a research assistant. This period has to be considered as service period and it cannot be taken to be a break in service,” the judge said. In view of the above, the university’s decision is clearly unsustainable and it does not satisfy the relevant rules, he reasoned.

Striking down certain clauses of the communication issued to the petitioner by the university, the judge ordered the petitioner shall be granted all the consequential benefits by considering the leave period as service period.