Revocation of the order of suspension and the Review Committee.

5. Revocation of the order of suspension and the Review Committee.

5.1 The general rule is that an order of suspension made or deemed to have been made may at any time be modified or revoked by the competent authority(Rule 10(5)(c)].

5.2. The earlier position i.e. prior to 2004 was that unless the competent authority issued an order of revocation, the employee continued to remain suspended. This position has undergone a modification after amendment of the Rule 10 of the CCS (CCA) Rules and instructions issued in the year 2004 iv and also in 2007v .The present position is that an order of suspension made or deemed to have been made will not be valid after a period of 90 days unless it is extended after review by the Review Committee constituted. This review has to be done before expiry of ninety days from the effective date of suspension. If it is decided to further continue the suspension, it shall not be continued beyond 180 days at a time. After 180 days, the review has to be done again. [Rule 10(6)]. Thus the constitution of Review Committee and review of the suspension has been given a statutory basis which prior to amendment of Rule 10 was governed by executive instructions.

5.3. Detailed orders have also been issued by DoPT on 7/1/2004vi wherein each Department has been requested to set a Review Committee to review cases of suspension. The Review Committee may take a view regarding revocation/ continuation in view of the facts and circumstances of the case and also taking into account that unduly long suspension, while putting the employee concerned to undue hardship, involve payment of subsistence allowance without the employee performing any useful service to the Government. Without prejudice to the foregoing, if the officer has been under suspension for one year without any charges being filed in a court of law or no charge-memo has been issued in a departmental enquiry, he shall ordinarily be reinstated in service without prejudice to the case against him. 63 However, in case the officer is in police/judicial custody or is accused of a serious crime or a matter involving national, security, the Review Committee may recommend the continuation of the suspension of the official concerned.

5.4. It may, however, be noted that no review as mentioned above will be necessary in cases of orders of deemed suspension under Rule 10(2) when the Government servant continues to be under detention. Similarly in cases of ‘deemed suspension, due to situations mentioned in para 4, the order of suspension shall continue to remain in force until it is modified or revoked.

Case law: In the case of Union of India V Dipak Mali [C.A.No.6661 of 2006 date of judgment 15.12.2009] the Supreme Court confirming the judgments of CAT and the High Court held that the suspension had lapsed in terms of rule 10(7) as it was neither reviewed nor extended. The respondent in this case who was working in the Gun Carriage Factory, Jabalpur was placed under suspension on 10.8.2002. But the suspension was not reviewed as required by sub-rule (6) of Rule 10 which took effect from 2.6.2004.[Union of India V Dipak Mali C.A.No.6661 of 2006 date of judgment 15.12.2009]