A Division Bench of the Chhattisgarh High Court, composed of Justices Sanjay K. Agrawal and Radhakishan Agrawal, held that non-payment of overtime allowance constitutes a continuing wrong, and that a fresh cause of action arises each time the allowance is denied, thus rendering pleas of delay and laches inapplicable. The case before the Court concerned railway employees who had carried out overtime work between 2007 and 2010 while employed in the Engineering Department under the South East Central Railway, Bilaspur zone. After their retirement (between 2010 and 2015), they submitted claims for overtime allowance for that period. The Railway Department’s Personnel Branch processed the claims for 19 employees and quantified the outstanding dues at ₹ 40,22,837. However, the Senior Divisional Personnel Officer rejected the claims on the basis that they were belated and beyond permissible time limits.
Dissatisfied, the employees filed Original Applications before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in 2017, urging payment of the overtime dues. The CAT accepted their position, holding that non-payment of overtime allowance amounts to a continuing wrong and cannot be shut out by delay. It directed the Railways to pay the amounts within 60 days. Review applications were filed by the Union of India, which were dismissed by the CAT on December 7, 2020. In turn, the railway authorities and the Union of India challenged the CAT’s orders before the Chhattisgarh High Court by way of writ petitions. The petitioners urged that the claims were stale and barred by delay and laches, noting that their Department had rejected the claims as early as March 4, 2015, and contended that the Tribunal should not have entertained such belated claims. The petitioners also invoked Rule 7(3) of the Railway Servants (Hours of Work and Period of Rest) Rules, 2005 to argue that the employees were not entitled to the claimed overtime under that rule.
The respondents countered that delay did not bar their claims because non-payment of overtime is a continuing wrong. They also anchored their argument on the Supreme Court’s decision in Union of India v. Tarsem Singh, which holds that, when a wrong recurs or continues, the doctrine of delay or laches cannot be applied to bar relief. The High Court accepted the respondents’ submissions and affirmed the CAT’s orders. The Court noted that the Railway authorities themselves had acknowledged the dues by quantifying the outstanding overtime amount for 19 employees, and that the rejection order of the Department was based solely on the ground of delay and laches. The Court held that doctrine of laches or undue delay could not be invoked when there is an admitted continuing wrong.
The bench observed that non-payment of a due allowance like overtime constitutes a continuing wrong because it involves an ongoing failure to fulfil the obligation. The Court held that each refusal to pay overtime gives rise to a fresh cause of action, and therefore claims cannot be deemed time-barred by delay or laches. The Court further found that the reliance on Rule 7(3) was unmeritorious, since the impugned order of rejection only rested on delay and not on any substantive disqualification under Rule 7(3). The High Court declined to uphold the petitions challenging the Tribunal’s decision and directed the petitioners to process the claim amounts and make the overtime payments within forty-five days. With those directions, the writ petitions filed by the railway authorities were dismissed.
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