The Delhi High Court has held that where an employee is suspended with immediate effect under the first proviso to Section 8(4) of the Delhi School Education Act, 1973, and the Director of Education does not approve that suspension within 15 days, the suspension automatically comes to an end. Any approval granted after expiry of that 15-day period does not revive the lapsed suspension, and if the employer still considers suspension necessary after that stage, a fresh suspension order must be passed in accordance with law.
The Court also clarified that delayed approval beyond 15 days has no legal effect in reviving a suspension that has already lapsed under the second proviso to Section 8(4) of the Delhi School Education Act, 1973.
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While disagreeing with the views expressed in Sharda Devi Sanskrit Vidyapeeth v. Director of Education [2016 SCC OnLine Del 3950], the Larger Bench comprising Justice C. Hari Shankar, Justice Om Prakash Shukla, and Justice Renu Bhatnagar, observed that the language of the statute is clear: if approval is not received within 15 days of an immediate suspension under the first proviso, the suspension comes to an end by operation of law. Once the suspension has lapsed, a later approval cannot revive it. The Bench strongly said that it is not possible to “breathe life into a dead body.”
The Bench also rejected the reasoning that the employee had in fact not worked after expiry of the 15-day period and therefore could still be treated as suspended. It said this factual position was irrelevant to the legal issue. Once the suspension lapsed, the employee was entitled to be assigned work, and if the school did not permit rejoining, that was the employer’s fault and could not be used to continue an otherwise expired suspension.
The Larger Bench further held that treating an employee as continuing under suspension after the statutory 15-day period, merely because the school considered him or her suspended, would be contrary to the statute. It also disagreed with the earlier view that later approval amounted to compliance with Section 8(4). According to the Bench, only approval within the 15-day period satisfies the statutory requirement; approval granted after that does not.
The Bench found support in the earlier Full Bench ruling in Delhi Public School v. Director of Education [2003 (67) DRJ 419 (FB)], which had already clarified that if no decision is taken within 15 days, the suspension lapses, though a fresh suspension order may still be passed later if the circumstances so require. The Bench said this was the correct legal position and made it clear that passing a fresh order is not a mere technicality or ministerial formality.
The Bench also referred to the Supreme Court’s judgment in Mrs. Y. Theclamma v. Union of India [(1987) 2 SCC 516], where it was expressly held that if there is no response from the Director within 15 days, the suspension lapses. The Supreme Court had also said that if the management still wants to suspend the employee thereafter, it must seek prior approval afresh. On that basis, the Larger Bench said there could be no question of a belated approval reviving a suspension that had already lapsed.
Briefly, a there was a conflict between two earlier Division Bench decisions of the Court on the effect of delayed approval of a suspension under Section 8(4) of the Delhi School Education Act, 1973. The dispute was narrow: where a school immediately suspends an employee without prior approval under the first proviso to Section 8(4), and the Director’s approval comes only after 15 days, does that later approval revive the suspension or not.
Section 8(4) requires prior approval of the Director before suspension of an employee of a recognised private school. Its first proviso allows immediate suspension without prior approval in cases of gross misconduct, but the second proviso says that such immediate suspension cannot remain in force beyond 15 days unless it is communicated to, and approved by, the Director before expiry of that period.
The respondents relied on Sharda Devi Sanskrit Vidyapeeth v. Director of Education [2016 SCC OnLine Del 3950], where a Division Bench had held that even if approval came after expiry of 15 days, the suspension could be treated as valid from that point onward, and that issuing a fresh suspension order would be a redundant formality. That judgment had also held that the employee would be entitled to full salary for the unapproved period, and only subsistence allowance after approval.
