Central Government Employee VRS Rules: Can an employee of a central government undertaking withdraw the VRS request anytime before acceptance? The answer is yes, according to a judgement of the Delhi High Court in Poonam Garg vs IfCI Venture Capital Funds Ltd. The petitioner was an employee of IFCI Ltd., a Government of India undertaking and a non-banking finance company. She had submitted VRS notice on 07-06-2019, seeking to be relieved w.e.f. 07-09-2019. However, within six days of submitting the notice, she sought to withdraw it and continued to discharge her duties. However, the company informed her on 04-07-2019 that her VRS notice was accepted but she would be relieved from service on 06-09-2019.
In a bid to stop the company from relieving her from duty, she approached the HC through a writ petition. The high court looked in several judgements of the apex court in similar cases. It considered whether the petitioner could have withdrawn her application seeking voluntary retirement from service before the same became effective considering the respondents‟ claim that her application was accepted by the respondent no.3, even before her request for withdrawal was received.
The HC noted that the petitioner’s request for voluntary retirement was not as per any particular temporary scheme floated by the Company but was as per its Regulations and is akin to a request for resignation; even the mandatory notice period of 90 days to be served by a retiring employee, as prescribed by the Regulations, stood fulfilled by the petitioner on her effective date of retirement, i.e., 07.09.2019.
Justice Rekha Palli said that the question of when an employee can be allowed to withdraw his request for resignation or voluntary retirement and the employer’s right to reject such request for withdrawal has been considered by the Supreme Court from time to time and the common thread running through all these decisions is that in normal circumstances, an employee can withdraw its resignation before it comes into effect or operation.
The HC said, “it is evident that the petitioner was well within her right to seek withdrawal of her request for voluntary retirement before its effective date.”
The Supreme Court had previously held that it is open for an employee to withdraw his resignation at any time until the same becomes effective.
The high court also found “merit in the petitioner‟s contention that the mere acceptance, if any, of her voluntary retirement by the respondents on 08.06.2019 was inchoate till the time it was communicated to her…”
“an application for voluntary retirement is an offer by the employee and anytime before its acceptance, the employee would be entitled to withdraw the same,” HC noted.