Hyderabad: Telangana high court has upheld relief granted to Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) former deputy registrar K Vinodhar, refusing to entertain the institute’s attempt to reopen a long-settled service dispute over 1,569 days of service and related benefits.Recently dismissing a writ appeal filed by NIMS, a division bench of Acting Chief Justice P Sam Koshy and Justice Narsing Rao Nandikonda confirmed a single judge’s order refusing to recall an earlier judgement in Vinodhar’s favour.The dispute stemmed from disciplinary proceedings initiated against Vinodhar through a charge memo issued in Nov 2001. He was accused of allegedly misleading his superiors while preparing orders by inserting the words ‘legal assistant‘ after assistant registrar/assistant finance controller, which allegedly resulted in extending the benefit of an enhanced pay scale.Following an inquiry, Vinodhar was compulsorily retired but was subsequently reinstated. The core issue before the court was whether the period between June 12, 2002, and Sept 27, 2006, totalling 1,569 days, should be treated as ‘dies non‘ or counted as duty.In an earlier round of litigation, a single judge allowed Vinodhar’s writ petition, set aside the decision treating the period as not on duty, and directed NIMS to treat it as duty for all purposes. The court also ordered payment of consequential benefits, including salary arrears, increments, revised pay fixation, and pensionary benefits.NIMS later sought recall of that order, alleging that Vinodhar had suppressed the fact that an earlier writ petition relating to the matter had been withdrawn. However, the recall application was dismissed, prompting the institute to file the present appeal.Dismissing the appeal, the division bench held that there was no justification to interfere with the single judge’s order. “The grounds such as alleged fraud and suppression were available earlier and could have been raised in review proceedings. Since the review order was not challenged, it had attained finality,” the bench noted.The court also referred to Supreme Court judgements dealing with fraud, estoppel and the principles of approbate and reprobate, while observing that allegations of fraud must be specifically pleaded and established. Finding no merit in the appeal, the bench affirmed the earlier order in favour of Vinodhar.
