Updated on Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 00:00 IST

New Delhi, Dec 30: Till the time a promoted employee starts working at a new post, there is no scope for drawing a higher salary even if the promotion takes effect from a back date, the Delhi High Court has held.

Ruling out back wages for an employee who gets promoted with retrospective effect, Justice S N Aggarwal passed the order on a petition filed by an employee of India Tourism Development Corporation.

The petitioner, Shashi Kiran Suri, had sought court's direction to the government to grant her arrears for the period during which she was denied promotion and was later given promotion with retrospective effect.

"I hold that she is not entitled to any arrears of salary for the period of her notional promotion preceding the date of her actual promotion," the court said.

The court referred to Supreme Court's verdict which talked about the doctrine of "no work no pay".

"It has been held that the salary and allowances of a promotional post cannot be granted to an incumbent as no work was done by an employee in the promotional post till the time the incumbent was actually promoted," the court said referring to apex court judgement.

The petitioner had pleaded that as she was denied the promotion because of the mistake of the administration, the authorities are bound to pay the arrears of salary along with the benefit with retrospective effect to undo their mistake.

The Corporation, however, contended that the promotion was not granted to her because of pendency of chargesheet against her at the relevant time.

Therefore, denial of promotion to the petitioner was bona fide and no fault can be attributed to the management in this regard, it pleaded.

Bureau Report