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PETITIONER: MAIMOONA KHATUN AND ANR.

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: STATE OF U.P. AND ANR.

DATE OF JUDGMENT16/04/1980

BENCH: FAZALALI, SYED MURTAZA BENCH: FAZALALI, SYED MURTAZA KAILASAM, P.S. KOSHAL, A.D.

CITATION:  1980 AIR 1773            1980 SCR  (3) 676  1980 SCC  (3) 578  CITATOR INFO :  RF         1990 SC 415  (21)

ACT:      Arrears   of   pay   and   allowances   consequent   to reinstatement in  service-Period of Limitation-The date from which  the   period  should   be   computed   whether   date reinstatement or  when the  salary become due-Limitation Act 1908 (Act IX of 1908)-Article 102 (now Article 7 of the Act, 1963)-Scope of.

HEADNOTE:      Appellants are  the widow  and daughter  of one Zamirul Hassan who  was employed  as a  tubewell technician  in  the Irrigation Department of U. P. Government. In the year 1954, Zamirul Hassan  was posted  at Lucknow  and  was  drawing  a salary of  Rs. 110/-  per month  plus  Rs.30/-  as  Dearness Allowance. He  was granted medical leave from 15th Feb. 1954 to 24th  April 1954  after which he applied for extension of his leave  which was  however, refused.  As directed  by the authorities, he  reported for  duty  on  20th  April,  1954. Instead of  giving any charge of office, on that day, he was served with  notice dated  27th March  1954 terminating  his services with  immediate effect  on the  ground that  he had reached the age of superannuation. Sri Hassan challenged the said  order  by  a  representation  to  the  Chief  Engineer Irrigation department.  The Superintending Engineer accepted the plea  of the  employee by his order dated 31st December, 1955  and  ordered  his  reinstatement  directing  that  the intervening period  may be  treated as  leave admissible  to him. Hassan  was then  posted to  Mathura on  15-2-1956.  On January 7, 1957, however, Hassan suddenly fell ill at Budaun and  died  on  January  12,  1957.  Even  in  spite  of  his reinstatement, the  employee did not receive his salary from 15th February  1954 to  14th February  1956 amounting to Rs. 3360/- as  also from  1-1-57 to  12-1-57 which  amounted  to Rs.53/-. Despite  the claim  the arrears  of salary were not paid and hence the appellants plaintiffs after giving notice under section  80 C.P.C.,  to the  Government brought a suit for the  recovery of  Rs.  3035-5-0.  The  plea  of  bar  of limitation taken by the respondent Government was disallowed and the  suit was  decreed.  The  trial  court  decreed  the

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plaintiff’s suit  after coming  to a  clear finding that the employee, Zamirul  Hassan, should have been treated to be on duty during  the entire  period  because  he  was  illegally prevented from  doing his  duty. As  a logical conclusion of this finding,  the trial  court also  held that the employee was entitled  to his  pay at the rate claimed by him for the period mentioned  in the  plaint. It was further held by the trial court  that on the representation of the employee, his services were  fully restored  and he was therefore entitled to his  full salary. The First Appellate Court confirmed it. The High  Court in second appeal accepted the plea of bar of limitation under  Art. 102  of  Limitation  Act,  1908;  but affirmed the  finding of  fact  that  Hassan  was  illegally prevented from duty.      Allowing the appeal by special leave, the Court ^      HELD: 1.  In cases,  where an  employee is dismissed or removed  from  service  and  is  reinstated  either  by  the appointing authority or by virtue of the order of 677 dismissal or  removal being  set aside by a civil court, the starting point  of limitation  would be  not the date of the order of  dismissal or  removal but  the date when the right actually  accrues,   that  is   to  say,  the  date  of  the reinstatement, by  the appointing authority where no suit is filed or  the date  of the  decree where a suit is filed and decreed.      2. The right to sue under Article 102 of the Limitation Act, 1908  (now Art.  7 of 1963 Act) would accrue only after the order of dismissal of the employee is set aside or he is reinstated by the appointing authority concerned. Until this stage is reached the right to recover arrears of salary does not accrue  at all and there is no question of suing for the arrears of  salary when  no order  of reinstatement had been passed or  the order  of dismissal  has not  been held  by a court of law to be void. [683 B-D]      The terminus  quo for the suit under Article 102 is the accrual of  the salary which by reason of F. R. 52 cases the moment an  order of dismissal or removal is made. Thus until a decree  holding the  order of  dismissal or  removal to be void is  passed by the Court, it is not open to the employee to take any steps for recovering his salary. In other words, the right  to recover  arrears of  salary would  accrue only after an  order of  dismissal has been set aside either in a departmental appeal or by a decree in a civil court. [683 G- H, 684A]      State of  Madras  v.  A.  V.  Anantharaman,  A.I.R.1963 Madras 425;  State of Bombay v. Dr. Sarjoo Prasad, Gumastha, I. L.  R. 1968  Bom. 1024;  Union of  India v.  Gian  Singh. A.I.R. 1970, Delhi 185; approved.      Sri Madhav  Laxman Vaikunthe v. State of Mysore, [1962] 1 S.C.R.  886; Punjab  Province v. Pandit Tara Chand, [1947] F.C.R. 89, distinguished.      3. The  principle contained  in F.R. 54 would, however, apply in  any case  and the  position would  be that until a Government  servant  is  reinstated,  he  cannot  claim  any arrears of salary or pay. Moreover in the instant case, Rule 54 applies  in terms because the employee was serving in the State of U.P. and was governed by Rule 54 and was reinstated by the Superintending Engineer, after his representation was accepted. It is, therefore, manifest that the employee could not have  claimed any  arrears of  his salary  until he  was reinstated. The  right to  sue for arrears of salary accrued only after the employee was reinstated. Once the civil court held that the direction given by the Superintending Engineer

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to treat the period of suspension as on leave being non est, the position  would be that the employee continued to remain in service and the effect of the adjudication was to declare that he  was wrongfully  prevented from attending his duties as public  servant. In  other words  the right to emoluments accrued on  the date  when the  suit  was  decreed  and  the starting point of limitation will be that date because at no time prior  there was any accrual of the right and hence the starting point  of limitation  would  not  be  the  date  of reinstatement but  the date  when the  Court held  that  the direction given  by  the  Superintending  Engineer  was  bad because until  such a  declaration was made, it was not open to the  employee to  have claimed the arrears of his salary. [684E-F,685A-C]      4. The  view that  the right  to sue for the arrears of salary accrues from the date when the salary would have been payable but for the order of dismissal and not from the date when the order of dismissal is set aside by the civil court, will cause  gross and  substantial injustice to the employee concerned who  having been  found by  a court of law to have been wrongly dismissed 678 and who  in the  eye of  law would have been deemed to be in service, would still be deprived for no fault of his, of the arrears of  his salary beyond three years of the suit which, in spite of his best efforts he could not have claimed until the order  of dismissal  was declared  to be  void.  Such  a course would  in fact  place the  Government employees  in a strange predicament  and give  an undeserving benefit to the employees who  by wrongfully  dismissing the employees would be left  only with  the responsibility  of paying them for a period of  three years  prior to  the suit  and swallow  the entire arrears beyond this period without any legal or moral justification. [687 G-H, 688 A-B]      State of Madhya Pradesh v. State of Maharashtra, [1977] 2 S.C.C. 288, followed.

JUDGMENT:      CIVIL APPELLATE  JURISDICTION :  Civil Appeal  No. 1523 (N) of 1970.      Appeal by  special leave  from the  Judgement and order dated 11-2-1969  of the  Allahabad High Court in SA No. 1631 of 1963.      S. S. Hussain for the Appellant.      G. N. Dixit and O.P. Rana for the Respondent.      The Judgment of the Court was delivered by:      FAZAL ALI,  J. This appeal by special leave is directed against a judgment and decree dated February 11, 1969 passed by the  Allahabad High  Court modifying the decree passed by the lower  Appellate Court  and  decreeing  the  plaintiff’s claim for  arrears of  salary, etc.,  for a  period of three years from  the date  of the  suit adding two months to this period. The  facts of  the case  lie within a narrow compass and may be summarised thus.      Zamirul  Hassan   (hereinafter  referred   to  as   the ’employee’) was  employed as  a tubewell  technician in  the Irrigation  Department   of  U.P.   Government  (hereinafter referred to  as the ’Government’). In the year 1954, Zamirul Hassan was posted at Lucknow and was drawing a salary of Rs. 110/- per  month plus  Rs. 30/-as Dearness Allowance. He was granted medical  leave from 15th February 1954 to 24th April 1954 after which he applied for extension of his leave which was, however,  refused. Accordingly,  the employee  reported

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for duty  on 20th  April 1954 but he was not given charge of office on  that date.  Instead the  employee was served with notice dated  27th March  1954 terminating his services with immediate effect  on the  ground that he had reached the age of superannuation.  The employee  challenged the validity of the notice  through a  representation  given  to  the  Chief Engineer, Irrigation  Department, contending  that as he was below 55  years of  age,  he  could  not  be  superannuated. Ultimately,   the   Superintending   Engineer   upheld   the contention of  the employee by his order dated 31st December 1955  and  ordered  his  reinstatement  directing  that  the intervening 679 period may  be treated  as  leave  admissible  to  him.  The employee was  then posted at Mathura on the 15th of February 1956. On  January, 7,  1957, however,  the employee suddenly fell ill  at Budaun  and died  on January  12, 1957. Even in spite of  his reinstatement the employee did not receive his salary  from  15th  February  1954  to  14th  February  1956 amounting to  Rs. 3360  as also  from 1-1-1957  to 12-1-1957 which amounted  to Rs.  53. Thus, the total amount which was claimed to  be due  to the  employee up  to the  time of his death came  to Rs.  3413 which remained unpaid. On the death of the employee, his widow, the present appellant, alongwith her daughters,  obtained a succession certificate and made a claim to  the respondent-Government.  Despite the  claim the arrears of  the salary  of the  employee were  not paid  and hence the present plaintiffs after giving notice, under s.80 of the  Code of  Civil Procedure,  to the Government brought the present  suit for  recovery of  Rs. 3035-5-0.  The Civil Judge held  that the suit was not barred by time and decreed the suit.  Thereafter, the  Government went  up in appeal to Appellate court  which confirmed  the judgment and decree of the trial  court. The Appellate court, however, directed the plaintiff to  produce  a  succession  certificate  from  the District Judge  before receiving  the amount. Having lost in the courts  below, the  Government filed  a second appeal in the High  Court and  contended that the order dated December 31, 1955  was  a  valid  one  and  the  direction  that  the intervening period may be treated as leave was in accordance with law  and hence the plaintiff could not claim the amount during this  period. The High Court overruled the plea taken by the  Government on  this point.  It  was  then  contended before the High Court that the suit was barred by limitation under Article  102 of  the Indian  Limitation Act (Act IX of 1908), as  it then  stood. The  central dispute  between the parties in  the High  Court was  as to  what should  be  the starting  point  of  limitation  in  this  particular  case. According to the appellant, the starting point of limitation would be  the date  when the  employee  was  reinstated  and restored to  service and  therefore he  was entitled  to the entire salary  which became  due. The  stand  taken  by  the Government was  that the  period of  limitation  was  to  be computed not from the date of his reinstatement but from the date when  the salary became due and therefore the claim for salary which  was due  for any  period beyond three years of the filing  of the  suit was  barred by limitation. The High Court partially  accepted this  argument and  held that  the suit was  undoubtedly barred  for any claim preferred by the plaintiff beyond  three years from the date of the filing of the suit  except for a further period of two months from the date  of  the  institution  of  the  suit.  The  High  Court accordingly allowed  the appeal  and modified  the decree of the courts below. We might mention here that the trial 680

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court decreed  the plaintiff’s  suit after coming to a clear finding that  the employee, Zamirul Hassan, should have been treated to  be on  duty during  the entire period because he was illegally  prevented from  doing his  duty. As a logical conclusion of  this finding,  the trial court also held that the employee  was entitled to his pay at the rate claimed by him for  the period  mentioned in the plaint. It was further held by  the trial  court that  on the representation of the employee, his  services  were  fully  restored  and  he  was therefore entitled  to his  full salary. The Appellate court and the  High Court  affirmed this  finding of fact given by the trial  court. Thus,  the  admitted  position  before  us appears to be that the employee having been reinstated would be deemed  to have  continued in service right from the date when he  was superannuated  to the  date when he died as the Department itself reinstated and restored his service. There was thus no justification for the Superintending Engineer to have given  a direction  that the  period of  his suspension would be treated as leave. The trial court had held that the suit was  not barred by limitation for any part of the claim of the  plaintiff. The High Court, however, differed only on this limited question of law.      We have  heard learned  counsel  for  the  parties  and although  we  find  that  the  question  is  not  free  from difficulty, the  decisions of  this Court show that the view taken by the High Court is legally erroneous. The High Court mainly relied  on a  decision of  this Court  in Shri Madhav Laxman Vaikunthe  v. The  State of Mysore as also a previous decision of  the Federal  Court in  The Punjab  Province  v. Pandit Tarachand.      Article 102 (now Article 7 of the Limitation Act, 1963) may be extracted thus:      7. "For wages in the case } Three years} When the wages          of any other person   }            } accrue due"      The Federal Court in The Punjab Province’s case (supra) had clearly  laid down  that the  term ’wages’  appearing in Article 102  of the  Limitation Act  of 1908 included salary and in this connection observed thus:           "Article  102  applies  to  suits  for  wages  not      otherwise provided  for by  the Schedule  and covers in      our judgment  a suit  to recover  arrears of pay.....In      Article 102 it is intended in our judgment to cover all      claims  for   wages,  pay   or  salary,  not  otherwise      expressly provided  for in  any other  Article  of  the      Schedule." 681 It further held that a servant of the Crown in India had the right to  maintain a  suit for  recovery of  arrears of  pay which had become due to him. This decision was given because there was  some controversy on the question as to whether or not a suit for arrears of salary could be brought in a court of law.  The controversy appears to have been set at rest by the Federal  Court in  the aforesaid  decision. Furthermore, the Court  held that  where an order of dismissal is invalid the position is that the employee was never dismissed in the eye of  law and would be deemed to have continued in service until retirement. In this connection the Court observed:           "The order  of  19th  March  1938,  purporting  to      dismiss the respondent having been made by an authority      that had  been expressly  debarred by  s. 240(2) of the      Constitution Act  from making  it, was  utterly void of      all effect. It was in the eye of the law no more than a      piece  of   waste-paper.  The   position  is  that  the      respondent was never legally dismissed from service and      continued in  law to  be a Sub-Inspector of Police till

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    the date  on which  he was  under the conditions of his      service due to retire. He was thus entitled to draw his      salary for  the period of his service after 19th March,      1938."      The question as to what should be the starting point of limitation under Article 102 was neither raised nor decided. It seems  to have  been assumed  or admitted  by the parties that as  Article 102 applied, the period of limitation would be three  years from the date when the right to sue accrued. The Federal  Court, however,  did not  decide as to when the right under Article 102 would actually accrue.      This matter  came up  for consideration  again in  Shri Madhav Laxman  Vaikunthe’s case (supra), a case on which the High Court  has heavily  relied, where  it was held that the suit of  the plaintiff  would be  governed by Article 102 of the Limitation  Act of 1908 which provided a period of three years from  the date  when the right to salary would accrue. In this  case also, the question as to when the right to sue for the  salary actually  accrued  was  neither  raised  nor decided and  the only controversy which was before the Court rested on  the question  as to  whether Article  102 or some other Article would apply to the suit. Another question that was argued  before  this  Court  was  whether  a  Government servant had  a right  to recover  the arrears  of pay  by an action in a civil court, it was decided by the Supreme Court that an employee had a right to bring a suit for recovery of arrears of pay in a civil court as held by the Federal Court in The  Punjab Province’s  case (supra). In this connection, this Court observed as follows:-           "On the  question of  limitation, he held that the      suit would  be governed  by  Art.  102  of  the  Indian      Limitation Act (IX of 1908) 682      as laid  down by  the Federal  Court in the case of the      Punjab Province v. Pandit Tarachand (1947 F. C. R. 89).      In that view of the matter, the learned Judge held that      adding the period of two months of the statutory notice      under s.  80 of  the Code  of Civil  Procedure given to      Government, the  claim would  be in  time from  June 2,      1951.... The  appellant contended  that  his  suit  for      arrears of  salary would  not be  governed by the three      years rule  laid down in Art. 102 of the Limitation Act      and  that   the  decision   of  the  Federal  Court  in      Tarachand’s case  (1947 F.C.R. 89) was not correct. The      sole ground on which this contention was based was that      "salary" was  not included  within the term "wages". In      our opinion,  no good  reasons have been adduced before      us for  not following  the aforesaid  decision  of  the      Federal Court.  In the result, the appeal is allowed in      part, that  is to  say, the  declaration granted by the      Trial Court  that the  order of the Government impugned      in this case is void, is restored, in disagreement with      the decision  of the  High Court.  The claim as regards      arrears of salary and allowance is allowed in part only      from the  2nd of  June 1951,  until  the  date  of  the      plaintiff’s retirement from Government service".      This Court  disagreed with  the High Court and restored the declaration granted by the trial court that the impugned order of the Government was void. The Court also allowed the claim as regards arrears of salary only from the 2nd of June 1951 until  the date  of  the  plaintiff’s  retirement  from Government  service.   Another  important   aspect  of  this decision is  that the  Court in  that case  came to  a clear finding that  as a  result of  the order  of reversion,  the appellant had  been punished but the order of the Government

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punishing  him   was  not   wholly  irregular   though   the requirements of  Art. 311 of the Constitution were not fully complied with.      Thus, a  careful perusal  of the decision would clearly reveal that  the actual  question at  issue in  the  present appeal was  neither raised  nor involved  in  the  aforesaid decision. This  decision was  noticed by a Division Bench of the Madras  High Court  in the case of State of Madras v. A. V. Anantharaman  where  the  Court  distinguished  the  case referred to  above on  the ground  that the  question of the starting point  of limitation was neither raised nor decided by this  Court. In  this connection,  the Madras  High Court observed as follows:           "As we  said, the  terms of F. R. 52 are clear and      no public servant who had been dismissed albeit only by      an invalid  order can ask the Government to pay him his      salary. His right to it will flow 683      only  when   the  order   of  dismissal  has  been  set      aside....... AIR  1962 SC  8 was not a case in which F.      R. 52  prevented  the  accrual  of  salary,  there  the      Government  servant   had   been   reverted   from   an      officiating post  to his  substantive post resulting in      loss of  seniority in  that post.  Such  reversion  was      later held  to be  one by  way of  punishment  and  the      procedure under  Article 311  of the  Constitution  not      having been  followed it  was held  to be  invalid. The      only point  argued in  that case was whether the salary      due to the Government servant would come within Article      102  of  the  Limitation  Act  and  that  question  was      answered in the affirmative."      On the  other hand,  this point was specifically raised before the  Madras High  Court which  fully went into it and held that  the  right  to  sue  under  Article  102  of  the Limitation  Act   would  accrue  only  after  the  order  of dismissal of  the employee  is set aside or he is reinstated by the  appointing authority  concerned. Until this stage is reached the  right to  recover arrears  of salary  does  not accrue at  all and  there is  no question  of suing  for the arrears  of  salary  when  no  order  of  reinstatement,  as indicated above,  had been  passed or the order of dismissal has not  been held  by a  court of  law to  be void. In this connection,  the  Madras  High  Court  observed  as  follows (supra):-           "But where  a public servant had been dismissed or removed, his  pay and allowance would cease from the date of such dismissal or removal. That is what is provided in F. R. 52. The  question then  will arise as to when in such cases, that is,  where there  has been a dismissal or removal which has been  later on  set aside  as  a  result  of  subsequent proceedings the  right to  recover arrears  of  salary  will accrue or arise. In neither of the two cases cited above was that question  raised or considered...... The terminus a quo for a  suit under  that provision  is  the  accrual  of  the salary. In other words, the cause of action is not any fixed point of time (e.g., on the 1st of the succeeding month) but when it  accrues. By  reason of F. R. 52 the right to salary ceases the  moment an  order for  dismissal  or  removal  is made."      The  High  Court  has  rightly  pointed  out  that  the terminus quo  for the  suit under Article 102 is the accrual of the  salary which  by reason of F R. 52 ceases the moment an order  of dismissal  or removal  is made.  Thus, until  a decree holding  the order of dismissal or removal to be void is passed  by the  court, it  is not open to the employee to

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take any  steps for  recovering his  salary. The Madras High Court then  concluded by  holding that  the right to recover arrears of  salary would  accrue  only  after  an  order  of dismissal has been set aside either in a 684 departmental appeal or by a decree in a civil court. In this connection, the High Court observed as follows:-           "We are  therefore of  opinion that in the case of      the dismissal  of  a  public  servant  which  has  been      subsequently set  aside as  in the  present  case,  the      right to  recover arrears  of salary  would accrue only      when that  order of dismissal has been set aside either      in departmental  appeal or  by a Civil Court. Viewed in      that light,  the instant  claim must  be held  to be in      time."      We find  ourselves in  complete agreement  with all the observations made  by the Madras High Court in the aforesaid case. The  counsel for  the respondent  submitted  that  the Madras High  Court erred  in relying  on Fundamental Rule 52 which would apply only to a case where the employee had been removed  and  then  reinstated  by  the  appointing  or  the departmental authority.  In  support  of  his  argument,  he relied on  the case  of Devendra Pratap Narain Rai Sharma v. State of Uttar Pradesh where after extracting Rule 54 of the Fundamental Rules framed by the State of Uttar Pradesh under Art. 309 of the Constitution, this Court held thus:           "This rule  has no  application to  cases like the      present in  which the  dismissal of a public servant is      declared  invalid   by  a   civil  court   and  he   is      reinstated."      Assuming that  this was  so, the principle contained in Rule 54  would however,  apply in  any case and the position would be  that until  a Government servant is reinstated, he cannot claim  any arrears of salary or pay. Moreover, in the instant case,  Rule 54 applies in terms because the employee was serving  in the  State of U. P. and was governed by Rule 54 and  was reinstated by the Superintending Engineer, after his representation  was accepted. It is, therefore, manifest that the  employee could not have claimed any arrears of his salary until  he was reinstated. Thus, even according to the decision relied upon by the respondent, it is clear that the right to  sue for  arrears of  salary accrued only after the employee was  reinstated. This Court further observed in the aforesaid case:-           "The effect  of the  decree of  the civil suit was      that the  appellant was never to be deemed to have been      lawfully  dismissed  from  service  and  the  order  of      reinstatement  was   superfluous.  The  effect  of  the      adjudication of  the civil court is to declare that the      appellant had  been wrongfully prevented from attending      to his duties as a public servant. It would not in such      a contingency  be open  to the authority to deprive the      public servant  of the remuneration which he would have      earned had he been permitted to work." 685      In view  of this  observation once the civil court held that the  direction  given by the Superintending Engineer to treat the  period of  suspension as  on leave being non est, the position  would be that the employee continued to remain in service and the effect of the adjudication was to declare that he  was wrongfully  prevented from attending his duties as a public servant. In other words, the right to emoluments accrued on  the date  when the  suit  was  decreed  and  the starting point of limitation will be that date because at no time prior  there was any accrual of the right and hence the

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starting point  of limitation  would  not  be  the  date  of reinstatement but  the date  when the  Court held  that  the direction given  by  the  Superintending  Engineer  was  bad because until  such a  declaration was made, it was not open to the employee to have claimed the arrears of his salary.      So far  as the question when the right would accrue and whether the period of three years was to be counted from the date of  the suit  or the  date of  the reinstatement  was a point that  was neither  raised nor  answered even  in  this decision. In  the case  of State  of Bombay  v.  Dr.  Sarjoo Prasad Gumasta  the view  taken by the Madras High Court was fully endorsed and it was pointed out that under Fundamental Rules 53  and 52 the Government servant’s salary ceased upon his suspension  and he  becomes entitled only to subsistence allowance. It  was  held  that  so  long  as  the  order  of suspension  or  dismissal  stands,  the  Government  servant cannot obviously  claim his salary because no salary as such accrues due. The court observed thus :-           "That  date   would  be   the  starting  point  of      limitation for a suit by the Government servant and the      date when  the order is quashed would be the terminus a      quo for  a suit  by the Government servant of claim for      the arrears  of salary  and allowances  for the  period      from the date of his suspension and/or dismissal."      A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court has also taken a similar  view and  while dwelling on the starting point of limitation under  Article 102, in the case of Union of India v. Gian Singh’s case observed as follows:-           "Article  102   of   the   said   Limitation   Act      undoubtedly provides  that a  suit for  wages has to be      filed within  three years  of the time when they accrue      due. The question, therefore, is whether the respondent      did have  a cause  of action  for claiming his full pay      and allowances  for the  period 19-11-1953 to 18-7-1956      in the  present suit  which he  filed on  September 10,      1959...... It was only on the 686      date of  the receipt  of the  notice of  termination of      services,  that   is,  26-1-1958   that  the  order  of      suspension stood  revoked, and  it would be only on and      after 26-1-1958  that the  respondent could be entitled      to claim  full pay  and allowances  for the  period  of      suspension. Full  wages for  the period  of  suspension      would,  therefore,   accrue  to   him  by   reason   of      Fundamental Rule  53 only  when the order of suspension      is revoked  or could  be deemed  to have  been revoked.      Prior to  that the  wages would not accrue and he would      have no cause of action."      So far  as this  Court is  concerned, the matter stands concluded by  a decision  of this Court in case of The State of Madhya Pradesh v. The State of Maharashtra & Ors. where a Bench of  three Judges considered this specific question and distinguished the  earlier decisions  of this  Court in  Jai Chand Sawhney  v.  Union  of  India  and  Sakal  Deep  Sahai Srivastava v.  Union of  India.  While  expounding  the  law regarding as to when the right to sue actually accrues, this Court observed as follows :-           "Three  features  are  to  be  borne  in  mind  in      appreciating the  plaintiff’s case  from the  point  of      view of limitation. First the plaintiff became entitled      to salary  for the  period September  16, 1943 upto the      date of  reinstatement on  December 12, 1953, only when      pursuant to  the decree dated August 30, 1953 there was      actual reinstatement  of the  plaintiff on December 12,      1953......

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         On these  facts  two  consequences  arise  in  the      present appeal.  First, since  the plaintiff  was under      suspension from  September 16,  1943 till  December 12,      1953 when  he was  reinstated and  again suspended from      January 19,  1954 till  February 23,  1956 when  he was      dismissed, his  suit on  October 6,  1956 is  within  a      period  of   three  years   from  the   date   of   his      reinstatement on  December 12, 1953. Second, during the      period of  suspension he  was not  entitled  to  salary      under Fundamental  Rule 53.  Further decision  to  that      effect was  taken by  the Madhya  Pradesh Government on      January 28,  1956 under Fundamental Rule 54. Therefore,      the plaintiffs  cause of  action  for  salary  for  the      period of  suspension  did  not  accrue  until  he  was      reinstated on December 12, 1953. The plaintiff’s salary      accrued only  when he was reinstated as a result of the      decree setting  aside the  orders of suspension and not      of dismissal.....           The rulings  of this  Court in Jai Chand Sawhney’s      case and  Sakal Deep’s case do not apply to the present      appeal because there was 687      no aspect  of any  suspension order remaining operative      until  the   fact  of  reinstatement  pursuant  to  the      decree.......Therefore, there  would be  no question of      salary accruing  or accruing  due so  long as  order of      suspension and  dismissal stands.  The High  Court  was      correct in  the conclusion  that the  plaintiff’s claim      for salary  accrued due  only on the order of dismissal      dated February 23, 1956 being set aside."      It is,  therefore,  manifest  from  a  perusal  of  the observations made  by this  Court in the aforesaid case that the plaintiff’s  salary accrued  only when  the employee was reinstated as a result of the decree setting aside the order of suspension or dismissal.      In that case, the employee was suspended as far back as 16th September  1943 and  after an enquiry, the employee was removed from  service on  7th November  1945.  The  employee filed a  suit on  the 6th  of January  1949 and  claimed his salary from  16th September  1943,  the  date  when  he  was suspended, up  to the  date of his reinstatement on December 12, 1953  when the  decree was  passed. Indeed,  if the view taken by the High Court in the instant case was correct, the suit of  the employee  would have  been hopelessly barred by limitation and  he could not have got a decree for more than three years from 1949, the date when he filed the suit. This Court,  however,   held  that   as  the  starting  point  of limitation was  not the  date of  the suit but the date when the removal  of the  employee was held to be void and he was reinstated, the  suit was not barred by limitation. We might also  mention   that  this   Court  also   held  that  under Fundamental Rule  52  of  the  U.  P.  Rules,  the  pay  and allowances of  a Government  servant ceased from the date of dismissal  and  therefore  there  was  no  question  of  his claiming any  arrears so  long as  his dismissal  or removal stood. The  facts of  the present  case seem  to  us  to  be directly covered  by the  decision rendered by this Court in the aforesaid case.      Thus, this  Court has  fully endorsed the view taken by the Madras and the Bombay High Court, referred to above.      It seems  to us that if we take the view that the right to sue  for the arrears of salary accrues from the date when the salary  would have  been payable  but for  the order  of dismissal and  not from the date when the order of dismissal is set  aside by  the civil  court, it  will cause gross and

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substantial injustice  to the  employee concerned who having been found  by a court of law to have been wrongly dismissed and who  in the  eye of  law would have been deemed to be in service, would still be deprived for no fault of his, of the arrears of  his salary beyond three years of the suit which, in spite of his best efforts he could not 688 have claimed,  until the  order of dismissal was declared to be void.  Such a  course would  in fact place the Government employees in  a strange  predicament and give an undeserving benefit to  the employers  who by  wrongfully dismissing the employees would  be left  only with  the  responsibility  of paying them  for a  period of  three years prior to the suit and swallow  the entire  arrears beyond  this period without any legal  or moral  justification.  This  aspect  does  not appear to  have been  noticed by the courts which have taken the view  that the  starting point  of limitation  would  be three years  from the date of the suit and was for the first time noticed  by this  Court in  State of  Madhya Pradesh v. State of  Maharashtra &  ors. (supra)  which seems  to us to have righted a wrong which was long overdue.      For these  reasons, therefore,  we are  clearly of  the opinion that  in cases  where an  employee is  dismissed  or removed  from  service  and  is  reinstated  either  by  the appointing authority  or by virtue of the order of dismissal or removal  being set  aside by  a civil court, the starting point of  limitation would  be not  the date of the order of dismissal or  removal but  the date  when the right actually accrues, that  is to  say, the date of the reinstatement, by the appointing  authority where no suit is filed or the date of the  decree where  a suit  is filed  and decreed. In this view of the matter, the High Court was in error in modifying the decree  of the trial court and the lower Appellate Court and limiting  the claim of the appellant to a period of only three years prior to the suit. In view of the findings given by the  courts on facts, which have not been reversed by the High Court,  it is manifest that the appellants are entitled to the  entire decretal amount claimed by them and for which a decree  was granted  by the  trial  court  and  the  lower appellate court. We, therefore, allow this appeal, set aside the judgment  and decree  of the  High Court and restore the judgment and  decree of  the trial court. The appellant will be entitled  to costs throughout and interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum on the decretal amount from the date of the termination of his service to the date of payment. S.R.                                         Appeal allowed. 689