The Supreme Court has held that an employee who voluntarily resigns, accepts all consequential benefits and secures fresh employment on the strength of that resignation cannot later seek reinstatement by pointing to a technical defect in the authority that initially accepted the resignation.

The Court ruled that while an unauthorized acceptance of resignation can be cured through subsequent ratification by the competent authority, an employee who has treated the resignation as final is also barred from challenging it after having altered his position.

The Court delivered the ruling while deciding disputes involving Bharat Singh Rawat, who had resigned from Delhi Technological University (DTU) and later sought re-appointment on the ground that the resignation was not accepted by the comeptent authority.

The Court held that an employee who tendered a resignation, treating its acceptance as final, and used it for new opportunities, cannot later, unilaterally withdraw the resignation citing unauthorised acceptance of the resignation.

“Having taken the settlement, the relief, and the certificate, and having used that certificate to open the door to another appointment, the respondent cannot, upon being disappointed of that appointment or upon mere reconsideration, turn back and treat the resignation he himself procured as a nullity.”, observed a bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe.

The Court clarified that a resignation, though invalidly accepted, cannot be later revoked if it was acted upon by the parties.

“A resignation, even where accepted in the first instance by one not clothed with authority to accept it, may nonetheless become a consummated and irrevocable transaction where both sides have, by their conduct, treated it as final and altered their positions upon that footing. In such a case, an employee is precluded, not by any doctrine of curative ratification, but by the ordinary principle against approbation and reprobation, from later impugning the very transaction he brought about and from which he has already taken the entire benefit.”, the Court observed.

The Respondent tendered a resignation on May 19, 2016, with a waiver of the notice period and requested acceptance of his resignation with effect from May 31, 2016. The Professor holding the additional charge of Vice-Chancellor, in the absence of the VC, accepted the resignation on May 25, 2016. Respondent was relieved, and his no-dues certificate, last pay certificate, and experience certificate were issued and accepted by him.

Nearly four months later, on September 22, 2016, Respondent sought to withdraw his resignation, contending that it had neither been accepted nor ratified by the Board of Management (BOM), the competent authority. The BOM, in its 20th meeting held on September 26, 2016, ratified the acceptance of resignation, and his request for withdrawal was rejected on November 3, 2016.

The Single Bench as well as the Division Bench of the High Court ordered the reinstatement of the Respondent, holding the acceptance of the resignation to be vitiated, leading to an appeal before the Supreme Court by the Delhi Technological University.

The core issue before the Supreme Court was about the right of an employee to withdraw a tendered resignation, and the effect of ratification, by the competent authority, of an otherwise unauthorised acceptance of resignation.

Allowing the DTU's appeal, the judgment authored by Justice Aradhe set aside the impugned findings, observing that a ratified act is deemed valid from the date of the original, unauthorised act, and not merely from the date of ratification.

“Ratification, in its ordinary legal signification, denotes the confirmation or adoption, by a person or body possessing the requisite authority, of an act earlier done on its behalf without such authority, or done irregularly, so that the act is treated as valid from its inception.”, the Court observed.

“…a resignation tendered on the footing that formal acceptance would follow at a later date was held incapable of unilateral withdrawal, the resigner having, in Lord Halsbury's words, already “consummated” the arrangement by his own conduct before he purported to revoke. Lord Watson likewise held that a resigner who has done all that lay in his power to complete a transaction cannot later be permitted to upset it merely because formal acceptance was still awaited.”, the Court added.

One can't have the cake and eat it too

Apart from ratification, the Court emphasized that Rawat's own conduct made the resignation irrevocable.

It noted that Rawat himself requested waiver of the notice period, accepted the relieving order, received his no-dues certificate, last pay certificate and experience certificate, and later used that experience certificate to obtain appointment as Deputy Registrar at NIT Calicut.

“He cannot have his cake and eat it too, i.e. he cannot claim the benefits of a completed exit from DTU when it suited him to move on, and simultaneously claim that no exit ever legally occurred when it suits him to return. This conclusion is reinforced by the decisions cited by the appellant recognising that an employee who has acted upon, and accepted the consequences of his own resignation cannot later found a challenge on a technical infirmity in the mode of its acceptance.”, the Court observed for the Respondent.

Doctrine of ratification

The judgment also discussed the principles of ratification.

The following legal principles about the doctrine of ratification were culled out by the bench:

"(i) Ratification means making a previously invalid act valid. It is the subsequent approval of an act that was initially done without authority.

(ii) A subsequent ratification is equivalent to prior authority. Once the competent authority ratifies an act, the law treats it as though the authority had existed from the beginning. This is based on the maxim ratihabitio mandato aequiparatur.

(iii) Ratification operates retrospectively. It relates back to the date on which the original act was performed and cures the defect arising from the absence of prior authority.

(iv) Only the competent authority can ratify an invalid act. The authority which is legally empowered to perform the act must itself approve or adopt the earlier unauthorised action.

(v) Express approval of the earlier action is sufficient. It is not necessary for the competent authority to pass a fresh order. A resolution or decision approving the earlier unauthorised act amounts to valid ratification.

(vi) Ratification cures defects of authority, not acts that are inherently illegal. The doctrine applies where the act could have been validly performed by the competent authority in the first place. It cannot validate an act that is void because it is prohibited by law or beyond the power of the authority."

In terms of the aforesaid, the appeal was allowed.

Cause Title: DELHI TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY VERSUS B.S. RAWAT (with connected case)

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 761

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Appearance:

For Appellant(s) : Mrs. Avnish Ahlawat, Adv. Mr. Uday Singh Ahlawat, Adv. Mr. Atik Gill, Adv. Mr. Mohnish Sehrawat, Adv. Mr. Ankit Roy, AOR Ms. Mrinalini Ramesh, Adv. Petitioner-in-person

For Respondent(s) : Caveator-in-person, AOR Mr. Ankit Roy , AOR Mrs. Avnish Ahlawat, Adv. Mr. Uday Singh Ahlawat, Adv. Mr. Mohnish Sehrawat, Adv. Mr. Atik Gill, Adv. Mr. Shyam Padman, Sr. Adv. Mr. Jaimon Andrews, Adv. Mr. Piyo Harold J, Adv. Ms. Ashwathy Shyam, Adv. Mr. Firdouse C P, Adv. Mr. Naresh Kumar, AOR