You have yourself mentioned that you did not have any leave left in your account and secondly you went on leave without authorisation. In such situation, the decision of the authority concerned to treat your absence from duty as leave without pay or unauthorised leave cannot be said to be improper.
Even if no leave was left in your account, you should have at least intimated the authority concerned or taken his permission before proceeding on leave, instead of going on leave for a long period of three months without taking his permission specifically. In these circumstances, the authority concerned has the power to initiate departmental proceedings for proceeding on leave for a long period without permission and thereby adversely affecting the office functioning and also violating the rules.
From your question, it appears that departmental proceeding for imposing a major penalty has been initiated against you. Removal is one of the major penalties that can be inflicted on a government servant, and therefore, legally it is possible to impose a penalty of removal in such situation. However, during the course of the departmental proceedings, you should try to explain the genuine reasons for the urgency for proceeding on leave without taking permission. If the disciplinary authority is convinced, generally speaking, in such cases a lesser penalty may perhaps be imposed, such as stoppage of increments or reduction to the lower stage of the pay scale; in fact, if you can fully convince the disciplinary authority, you may even be exonerated from the disciplinary action.
Dr. Ashok Dhamija is a New Delhi based Supreme Court Advocate and author of law books. Read more about him by clicking here. List of his Forum Replies. List of his other articles. List of his Quora Answers. List of his YouTube Videos.
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