Employee Terminated After Acquittal Entitled To Back Wages Till Reinstatement: Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court has held that when an employee is terminated after being acquitted in a criminal case, s/he would be entitled to back wages for the period between such termination and reinstatement.

The division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay K Agarwal and Justice Inderjeet Singh observed that even though subsequent acquittal did not retrospectively erase legal consequences of earlier conviction, a termination effected after acquittal could not attract this principle.

For context, the appellant was convicted in a criminal case in May, 2017, and eventually acquitted in June 2017. However, based on the conviction, he was terminated from service, in August, 2017, i.e. after he was acquitted. When the mistake was realized, the petitioner was reinstated in February, 2018.

He was held to be entitled to all the consequential benefits, except for monetary benefits. Hence, the order of the single judge was challenged to the limited extent of non-grant of back wages for the period between the termination, which was after acquittal, and reinstatement.

The Court referred to the Supreme Court case of Ranchhodji Chaturji Thakore v. Superintendent Engineer, Gujarat Electricity Board, Himmatnagar, in which it was held that since the termination and consequential non-rendering of service was not the result of any disciplinary proceedings, but petitioner's own involvement in a crime, he was not entitled to back wages.

Further reference was made to the case of Baldev Singh v Union of India which held that subsequent acquittal of government servant though evades the conviction, did not retrospectively wiped out the legal consequences of the conviction.

At the same time, the Court referred to the case of Raj Narain v Union of India and Others in which it was held that in such scenario, the employee was entitled to back-wages only from the date of acquittal till the date of his reinstatement.

In this background, the Court observed that since in the present case, the date of termination was after the date of his acquittal, the petitioner shall be entitled to back-wages from the date of termination till the date of reinstatement.

Accordingly, the challenged order was set aside partly to the extent of not granting back wages.