Casual Leave for Central Government Employees

Casual leave is 8 days a calendar year for central government employees, a concession not a recognised leave. The rules, combining with holidays, and the limits.

Updated 19 July 2026 · Reviewed by Salary-Calculator.in

Casual leave is a short-duration concession that lets a central government employee be away from office for a few days a year without it being treated as absence from duty; it is not a recognised form of leave under the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972, so an employee on casual leave is not treated as absent and the pay is not intermitted, and it is governed by administrative instructions of the Department of Personnel and Training rather than by the statutory leave rules, at an entitlement of 8 days in a calendar year.

Casual leave is the leave every employee uses and few understand precisely. It is the day off for a personal errand, a family occasion, or a short illness that does not need a medical certificate, and because it is so ordinary it is often assumed to work like the other kinds of leave. It does not. Casual leave is not “leave” in the technical sense at all: it is a concession that the rules deliberately keep outside the leave account, so that a day of casual leave neither debits a balance nor counts as a break in service. That distinction, between casual leave as a concession and the recognised kinds of leave, runs through every rule about it and explains most of what puzzles employees, from why it cannot be joined to earned leave to why intervening holidays are not counted.

This article sets out the whole of casual leave: what it is and what it is not, the 8-day calendar-year entitlement and its history, the rules on combining it with holidays and with other leave, the five-day limit on a single spell, half-day casual leave, how it is treated on tour, the special casual leave for persons with disabilities and other purposes, and how casual leave differs from the earned leave and the other recognised kinds. The framework of the recognised leaves is in the CCS (Leave) Rules article; casual leave sits alongside that framework rather than inside it, and this article is its detail.

What casual leave is, and what it is not

The defining fact about casual leave is a negative one: it is not a recognised form of leave. The standard formulation, repeated across the service-rule compilations, is that casual leave is not a recognised form of leave and is not subject to any rules made by the government, that an employee on casual leave is not treated as absent from duty, and that the pay is not intermitted. Each part of that formula matters.

Because casual leave is not “leave”, it is not debited from any leave account. Earned leave and half pay leave are drawn from balances that are credited and run down; casual leave has no such account, so taking a day of casual leave does not reduce a balance in the way taking a day of earned leave does. Because an employee on casual leave is not treated as absent, the day is not a break in service and does not affect the continuity of duty for any purpose that turns on continuous service. And because the pay is not intermitted, the employee draws full pay for the day exactly as if on duty; there is no leave salary to compute, because it is not leave.

The consequence is that casual leave is a concession rather than an entitlement. It is given for the convenience of the employee, and the government has chosen to keep it outside the statutory rules and to regulate it by administrative instructions instead. That is why it can be refused in the exigencies of work, why it comes with a fixed annual quota rather than an earned balance, and why the rules about it are found in a series of Office Memoranda rather than in a numbered rule. The Department of Personnel and Training is the authority that issues those instructions.

The entitlement: 8 days a year

The casual leave entitlement is 8 days in a calendar year for a regular civilian central government employee. It is uniform across Groups A, B and C, so the entitlement does not vary by seniority or pay level, unlike the recognised leaves, several of which are credited by length of service. The 8 days are available for the calendar year, 1 January to 31 December, and casual leave not used within the year lapses at the end of it. There is no carry-forward to the next year and no encashment, because there is no account to carry or to encash; the quota simply resets each January.

The 8-day figure is the result of a reduction. Casual leave was originally 12 days a year, fixed by the foundational instruction of 1959, and certain categories with fewer holidays drew 15 days. The entitlement was cut to 8 days with effect from 1 January 1998, as part of a wider rationalisation, and it has stayed at 8 days since. Industrial and operational or maintenance staff, who had drawn 15 days, were brought down to 10 days from the same date, and that higher figure of 10 days for industrial staff continues. So the two figures to know are 8 days for regular employees and 10 days for industrial and operational staff.

An employee who joins during the year does not necessarily lose the year’s quota. Casual leave may be granted to a mid-year entrant either in full or in proportion to the part of the year remaining, at the discretion of the competent authority, so a person appointed in July is not automatically limited to half the quota. Because casual leave is a concession administered by the office, this kind of question is settled by the sanctioning authority within the instructions rather than by a rigid formula.

Combining casual leave with other leave and with holidays

The rules on combining casual leave are where the concession’s separateness shows most clearly, and they are governed by Rule 11 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972, the rule on the combination of leave. Rule 11 provides that leave of one kind may be combined with leave of another kind, but it expressly excepts casual leave: casual leave cannot be combined with any other kind of leave. So an employee cannot take a few days of casual leave and join them to a spell of earned leave, half pay leave or extraordinary leave to make one continuous absence. If a longer absence is needed, it must be taken as one of the recognised leaves throughout, not as casual leave extended by regular leave.

There are two things casual leave can be combined with. The first is a restricted holiday: a restricted holiday may be prefixed or suffixed to casual leave, so an employee can take a restricted holiday and add casual leave on either side of it. The second is special casual leave, which may be combined with casual leave, though special casual leave cannot be combined with both casual leave and regular leave together. These two, restricted holidays and special casual leave, are the only companions casual leave admits.

Holidays that are not casual leave are treated generously. Sundays, weekly-offs and closed or gazetted holidays may be prefixed or suffixed to a spell of casual leave, and, importantly, where such holidays fall within a spell of casual leave they are not counted as casual leave. This is the rule that lets a short casual-leave absence stretch across a weekend without eating into the quota. An employee who takes casual leave on a Friday and the following Monday, with the Saturday and Sunday between them, is charged two days of casual leave, not four, because the intervening holidays are not counted. The absence is four days long, but only the two working days are casual leave.

The five-day limit and half-day casual leave

Casual leave cannot be taken in an unlimited block. The maximum that may be taken at any one time is 5 days, relaxable in exceptional circumstances by the competent authority. This five-day limit was set with effect from 1 January 1998; before that the limit was 8 days at a time, so a reader who finds the older figure should treat it as out of date. Because intervening holidays are not counted, a spell that uses the full five days of casual leave can still produce an absence longer than five calendar days when a weekend or a holiday falls inside it.

Casual leave can be taken for half a day. The lunch or mid-day interval is the dividing line, so an employee can take casual leave for the forenoon or the afternoon and work the other half, and half a day of casual leave is debited from the quota. This half-day facility is also the mechanism behind the treatment of late attendance: half a day of casual leave is debited for a late arrival or an early departure, though a late arrival of up to an hour on not more than two occasions in a month may be condoned by the competent authority rather than charged to casual leave. The half-day rule makes casual leave a flexible instrument for the short, part-day absences that do not need a full day off.

Casual leave on tour and its limits

Casual leave can be granted to an employee who is on tour, but with one financial limit: no daily allowance is admissible for the period of the casual leave. So an employee travelling on duty who takes casual leave during the tour does not draw the tour daily allowance for those days, because for that period they are on a personal concession rather than on duty. The rest of the tour is unaffected.

Two further boundaries complete the picture. The Leave Travel Concession may be availed while on casual leave, so an employee can use casual leave for the days of an LTC journey rather than having to take earned leave, which is one of the practical conveniences of the concession. And casual leave cannot be combined with joining time: under the CCS (Joining Time) Rules 1979, joining time on transfer is not to be combined with casual leave, so an employee on transfer cannot add casual leave to the joining time to lengthen the gap between the two postings.

Special casual leave and casual leave for persons with disabilities

Alongside ordinary casual leave the government grants special casual leave, a related but distinct concession for defined purposes. Special casual leave is granted, over and above the ordinary casual leave, for specified activities that the government wishes to encourage or accommodate, such as participation in sporting events, certain examinations, blood donation, sterilisation under the family-welfare programme, and, notably, the needs of employees with disabilities. Like ordinary casual leave, special casual leave is a non-statutory concession administered by the Department of Personnel and Training, and this article treats it in outline; the special casual leave article covers its full range of purposes.

For an employee with a disability the special casual leave is significant. An employee with a disability is granted 4 days of special casual leave in a calendar year for needs connected with the disability, introduced on the recommendation of the 6th Central Pay Commission through the Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum of 19 November 2008, and a further special casual leave of up to 10 days to take part in conferences, seminars, training and workshops related to disability. These are over and above the ordinary 8 days of casual leave, and they are recorded as special casual leave. The Department of Personnel and Training’s compendium of instructions on reservation for persons with benchmark disabilities lists special casual leave among the facilities for employees with disabilities, so it is part of the current framework, not a lapsed provision.

Special casual leave: the range of purposes

Special casual leave deserves a fuller word, because it is the vehicle through which the government accommodates a range of activities without charging them to leave. Beyond the provisions for persons with disabilities, special casual leave is granted for a defined list of purposes, each with its own limit set by instruction. Sportspersons representing the country or the department in recognised events are granted special casual leave for the days of participation and the necessary travel. An employee who donates blood is granted special casual leave for the day of donation. Employees who undergo sterilisation under the family-welfare programme are granted special casual leave for the recuperation period, with men and women drawing different periods fixed by the instructions.

Special casual leave also covers the situations where an employee cannot attend office through no fault of their own. Where a natural calamity, a bandh, a curfew or a serious disruption of transport prevents an employee from reaching office, special casual leave may be granted for the days lost, so the absence is not charged to casual leave or treated as leave. Participation in certain examinations, in recognised trade-union or staff-association activity, and in other activities the government chooses to encourage is similarly covered. The common feature is that special casual leave is purpose-specific: it is granted for the named activity and to the extent the instruction allows, and it is recorded separately from ordinary casual leave, so the ordinary quota of 8 days is not touched. The special casual leave article sets out the full list of purposes and the limit for each.

The casual leave record

Casual leave is applied for and sanctioned in the ordinary way, and each office keeps a record of it. Because there is no central leave account for casual leave, the office maintains a casual leave register for each employee that shows the 8 days for the year and the days used, so the balance for the year can be seen at a glance. An employee applies to the sanctioning authority, who grants the casual leave subject to the work of the office, and the days are entered against the year’s quota. Half-days are recorded as half-days, and the intervening holidays that are not counted are left out of the debit.

The record matters because the quota is annual and lapses. An employee who has used all 8 days cannot draw more casual leave that year and must use a recognised leave for any further absence, and an employee who has days left at the year end loses them, since there is no carry-forward. Casual leave is available to temporary and officiating employees as well as to permanent ones, from the time of appointment, on the same terms, because the concession is not tied to the leave account that some other benefits depend on. Keeping an eye on the casual leave balance through the year is therefore part of managing one’s leave, since the 8 days are a fixed and non-renewable resource within the calendar year.

How casual leave differs from earned leave

It helps to set casual leave against the recognised leaves to see what the concession gives up and what it gains. The table below contrasts casual leave with earned leave , the commonest of the recognised kinds.

Feature	Casual leave	Earned leave
A recognised form of leave	No, a concession	Yes, under the CCS (Leave) Rules
Debited from a leave account	No	Yes, from the earned leave account
Treated as absence from duty	No	Yes
Annual quantum	8 days a calendar year	30 days a year, credited in two instalments
Carry forward	None, lapses each year	Accumulates up to 300 days
Encashment	No	Yes, on retirement and with LTC
Combined with other leave	No, except RH and special CL	Yes, with other leave
Maximum at one time	5 days	Long spells permitted

The contrast shows the trade. Casual leave is convenient, because it is not charged to an account, does not count as absence and can cover a part-day or a single day at short notice, but it is limited, because it is capped at 8 days, cannot be accumulated or encashed, cannot be joined to other leave, and cannot exceed five days at a stretch. Earned leave is the opposite: it is a full form of leave that accumulates and can be encashed, but it counts as absence, is drawn from a balance, and is used for the longer, planned absences. An employee uses casual leave for the short, incidental days off and earned leave for the planned breaks, and the two are not interchangeable because the rules keep them apart.

Casual leave as a concession, not a right

The last point returns to the first. Casual leave is a concession, and it is granted subject to the exigencies of the public service. Because it is not an entitlement, the sanctioning authority can refuse it or ask that it be deferred when the work of the office requires the employee’s presence, and an employee cannot insist on casual leave on a particular day as of right. In practice casual leave is granted routinely, because it is a small and reasonable convenience, but the discretion is real, and it distinguishes casual leave from the recognised leaves, which are governed by rule and refused only within the limits the rules set.

That concessional character is the thread that ties the whole subject together. It is why casual leave sits outside the CCS (Leave) Rules, why it has a fixed annual quota rather than an earned balance, why it lapses and cannot be encashed, why it cannot be combined with the recognised leaves, and why it can be refused. Understanding casual leave as a concession, rather than as one more kind of leave, is the key that makes every one of its rules follow.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is casual leave?

Casual leave is a short-duration concession that lets a central government employee stay away from office for a few days without it being treated as absence from duty. It is not a recognised form of leave under the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972: an employee on casual leave is not treated as absent, the pay is not intermitted, and no leave is debited from any leave account. It is governed by administrative instructions of the Department of Personnel and Training, not by the statutory leave rules, and the entitlement is 8 days in a calendar year.

How many days of casual leave does a central government employee get?

8 days in a calendar year for a regular civilian central government employee, uniform across Groups A, B and C. The entitlement was reduced from 12 days to 8 days with effect from 1 January 1998. Industrial and operational or maintenance staff get 10 days. Casual leave for a year that is not used lapses at the end of that year; it is not carried forward and is not encashable.

Can casual leave be combined with earned leave or other leave?

No. Under Rule 11 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972, casual leave cannot be combined with any other kind of leave, such as earned leave, half pay leave or extraordinary leave. It can, however, be combined with restricted holidays and with special casual leave. So an employee cannot join casual leave to a spell of earned leave to make one continuous absence, but can prefix or suffix a restricted holiday to it.

What is the maximum casual leave that can be taken at one time?

Not more than 5 days at any one time, relaxable in exceptional circumstances by the competent authority. This limit was set with effect from 1 January 1998; the earlier limit was 8 days at a time. Sundays and holidays that fall within the spell are not counted against the casual leave, so the actual absence can be longer than five working days when holidays intervene.

Are Sundays and holidays counted as casual leave?

No. Sundays, weekly-offs and closed or gazetted holidays may be prefixed or suffixed to casual leave, and where they fall in the middle of a spell of casual leave they are not counted as casual leave. So an employee who takes casual leave on the Friday and the following Monday, with a Saturday and Sunday between, is charged two days of casual leave, not four, because the intervening holidays are not counted.

Is casual leave a right that cannot be refused?

No. Casual leave is a concession, not a right. Because it is granted for the convenience of the employee and not as a matter of entitlement, the sanctioning authority can refuse or curtail it in the exigencies of work, and it must be applied for and sanctioned in the normal way. An employee cannot insist on casual leave on a particular day if the work of the office does not permit it.

Do persons with disabilities get extra casual leave?

Yes, in the form of special casual leave over and above the ordinary 8 days. An employee with a disability is granted 4 days of special casual leave in a calendar year for needs connected with the disability, on the 6th CPC recommendation through the Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum of 19 November 2008, and a further special casual leave of up to 10 days to take part in conferences, seminars and training related to disability. These are special casual leave, a separate concession from ordinary casual leave, and both are administered by the Department of Personnel and Training.

External references

References

Ministry of Home Affairs Office Memorandum No. 6/3/59-Estt(A) dated 23 December 1959: foundational instructions on the grant of casual leave.
Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 28016/3/98-Estt.(A) dated 15 June 1998, read with OM No. 12/9/94-JCA dated 14 January 1998: reduction of casual leave to 8 days a year and the limit of 5 days at one time, with effect from 1 January 1998.
Rule 11 of the Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972 (combination of leave; casual leave excepted).
Rule 6(2) of the Central Civil Services (Joining Time) Rules, 1979 (joining time not to be combined with casual leave).
Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 25011/1/2008-Estt.(A) dated 19 November 2008: 4 days of special casual leave in a calendar year for employees with disabilities.