Commuted Leave
Commuted leave is half pay leave taken at full pay on a medical certificate under Rule 30 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972, with twice the leave granted debited.
Commuted leave is half pay leave taken at full pay on a medical certificate, granted under Rule 30 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972, with twice the leave granted debited against the half pay leave due under Rule 30(1)(d). It is the device that lets a central government employee draw the full salary during a long illness by spending the half pay leave account at double speed.
There is no separate commuted leave quota. Rule 30 does not create an account; it changes the terms on which the half pay leave account under Rule 29 is drawn. On ordinary half pay leave the employee draws half the leave salary and one day is debited for each day taken. On commuted leave the employee draws the full leave salary under Rule 40(4) and two days are debited for each day taken. The same 120 days of half pay leave is therefore either 120 days at half pay or 60 days at full pay, and nothing else changes.
Rule 30 has stood in its present form since 11 April 1975, when MoF Notification No. 16(5)-E.IV(A)/74 deleted clauses (b), (c) and (e) of sub-rule (1). Nothing replaced them. That deletion is the reason the widely quoted 240-day career cap on commuted leave has no basis in the rules as they stand, a point set out below with the figure it was confused with.
This article sets out the two-for-one debit and the half-the-balance limit, the leave salary under Rule 40(4), the certificates in Forms 3, 4 and 5 that open and close a medical spell, the four routes to commuted leave without a medical certificate, the recovery under Rule 30(2) and its two carve-outs, who is eligible and who is excluded by Rule 2, and the cost that commutation imposes on the retirement encashment. The wider leave code is in the CCS (Leave) Rules article, and the account this leave draws on is in the half pay leave article.
Definition and governing rule
Rule 30(1) of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 is the whole grant: “Commuted leave not exceeding half the amount of half pay leave due may be granted on medical certificate to a Government servant (other than a military officer)”, subject to the conditions in its clauses. Two of those conditions survive. Clause (a) requires the authority competent to grant leave to be satisfied that there is a reasonable prospect of the government servant returning to duty on the expiry of the leave. Clause (d) requires that twice the amount of the leave granted be debited against the half pay leave due.
The purpose is narrow and the design is deliberate. Half pay leave under Rule 29 accrues at 20 days a year, in two instalments of 10 days each on 1 January and 1 July, and it has no accumulation ceiling, so it is the reserve a career builds for a long absence. It is also paid at half the leave salary, which is difficult to live on through a serious illness. Rather than create a new pool of full-pay medical leave, Rule 30 lets the employee convert part of the existing reserve, and charges double for the privilege.
The rules came into force on 1 June 1972 under Rule 1(2), and the Department of Personnel and Training maintains the consolidated text, updated as on 24 September 2024. Rule 30 appears in Chapter IV, among the kinds of leave due and admissible, between half pay leave at Rule 29 and leave not due at Rule 31.
The two-for-one debit
Rule 30(1)(d) debits twice the amount of leave granted, and a worked example fixes the arithmetic. An employee with 120 days of half pay leave at credit takes 30 days of commuted leave on a medical certificate. The leave account is debited by 60 days, twice the 30 days taken, leaving 60 days of half pay leave. The employee has drawn full pay for 30 days and spent 60 days of the reserve to do it.
The double debit and the half-the-balance limit in Rule 30(1) fit together exactly. Because commuted leave may not exceed half the half pay leave due, and because each day granted debits two, the largest permissible spell of commuted leave consumes the entire half pay leave balance and no more. The employee with 120 days at credit may take at most 60 days of commuted leave, which debits the full 120. The two provisions are not independent limits pulling against each other; one is the arithmetic consequence of the other.
What this makes is a choice about pay against duration, not about entitlement. The 120-day balance funds 120 days at half pay or 60 days at full pay. An employee whose illness will run four months and who can manage on half pay preserves the balance by not commuting; one who cannot manage on half pay commutes and accepts that the reserve empties in half the time.
The half-the-balance limit
The ceiling on medical commuted leave is half the amount of half pay leave due at the time of the grant, and it is the only ceiling Rule 30(1) imposes. It moves with the balance. An employee with 400 days of half pay leave at credit may be granted up to 200 days of commuted leave in a spell; an employee with 40 days may be granted up to 20. Nothing in Rule 30 fixes a number of days for a career, a year or a spell.
The outer bound comes from elsewhere in the rules. Rule 12(1) bars leave of any kind for a continuous period exceeding five years, and Rule 12(2) deems a government servant who remains absent for a continuous period exceeding five years, with or without leave, to have resigned, subject to a reasonable opportunity to explain. DoPT Notification No. 18017/1/2014-Estt.(L) dated 3 April 2018 added a proviso excluding leave applied for on a medical certificate in connection with a disability from that deeming provision.
Why 240 days is not a cap
No provision of Rule 30 caps medical commuted leave at 240 days over a career. Clauses (b), (c) and (e) of Rule 30(1) were deleted by MoF Notification No. 16(5)-E.IV(A)/74 dated 11 April 1975, and the consolidated text updated as on 24 September 2024 carries them as “Deleted” with nothing substituted. The 240-day figure belongs to a different provision: it was the accumulation ceiling on earned leave, raised to 300 days by DoPT Notification No. 13026/1/99-Estt.(L) dated 18 April 2002, and raised again in the leave preparatory to retirement and encashment provisions by DoPT Notification No. 13026/1/2002-Estt.(L) dated 15 and 16 January 2004. An employee refused commuted leave on the strength of a 240-day career cap is being refused on a rule that does not exist.
Leave salary under Rule 40(4)
Rule 40(4) of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 entitles a government servant on commuted leave to leave salary equal to the amount admissible under Rule 40(1), which is the pay drawn immediately before proceeding on leave. That is the full rate, identical to earned leave, and it is the entire benefit of commuting.
The contrast is in the neighbouring sub-rule. Rule 40(3) puts a government servant on half pay leave or on leave not due at half the amount specified in Rule 40(1). Rule 40(5) gives a government servant on extraordinary leave no leave salary at all. So the half pay side of the leave rules offers three rates for what is, in accounting terms, the same account: half under Rule 40(3), full under Rule 40(4) at double the debit, and nothing under Rule 40(5) with no debit.
Two adjustments attach to the rate. The Note to Rule 40(1) substitutes the pay the government servant would have drawn on duty in India for the pay actually drawn, for any period spent on foreign service out of India. Rule 40(8) reduces the leave salary payable during leave other than earned leave by the amount of any benefit payable under the Employees’ State Insurance Act 1948, where that Act applies. Dearness allowance is payable on the leave salary under the dearness allowance orders of the Department of Expenditure, not under Rule 40.
The medical certificate: Forms 3 and 4
A medical certificate under Rule 19 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 is the gate to commuted leave on medical grounds, and the prescribed forms name commutation on their face. Form 3 is the medical certificate for gazetted officers, headed as a certificate recommending “LEAVE OR EXTENSION OF LEAVE OR COMMUTATION OF LEAVE”. Form 4 is the equivalent for a non-gazetted government servant, with the same heading. Both require the certifying doctor to state the illness and the period of absence from duty considered necessary for the restoration of health.
Who may certify depends on the employee’s health cover. Rule 19(1) routes a Central Government Health Scheme beneficiary to a doctor in a CGHS dispensary, and a non-beneficiary to a government hospital or an authorised medical attendant. For hospitalisation or indoor specialised treatment for a disease such as heart disease or cancer, the certificate may come from an authorised doctor of a private hospital recognised under the CGHS or the Central Services (Medical Attendance) Rules 1944, where the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recognised that hospital for the disease. The Note to Rule 19(1)(ii) further allows a non-gazetted employee’s certificate to come from a registered Ayurvedic, Unani or Homoeopathic practitioner, from a registered dentist for a dental ailment, or from an honorary medical officer, provided the state in which the employee falls ill accepts such a certificate for its own employees.
The certificate settles the illness and nothing else. Rule 19(5) states that its grant “does not in itself confer upon the Government servant concerned any right to leave”: the certificate is forwarded to the authority competent to grant leave, and that authority’s orders are awaited. Rule 19(3) lets that authority secure a second medical opinion from a government medical officer not below the rank of a civil surgeon or staff surgeon, and Rule 19(4) makes it the duty of that officer to express an opinion both on the facts of the illness and on the necessity for the amount of leave recommended.
One waiver does not open a route to commuted leave. Rule 19(6) permits the competent authority to waive the production of a medical certificate for leave not exceeding three days at a time, but expressly provides that such leave “shall not, however, be treated as leave on medical certificate and shall be debited against leave other than leave on medical grounds”. Since Rule 30(1) grants commuted leave only on a medical certificate, a spell covered by the Rule 19(6) waiver cannot be commuted. The staff side raised this in May 2024 as a request for clarification, seeking to have waived three-day spells treated as commuted leave at the Rule 30(1) debit; no amendment to Rule 30 has followed, and the position under the rules as they stand is unchanged.
Sanction and the reasonable prospect of return
Clause (a) of Rule 30(1) is a condition on the sanctioning authority, not on the employee: the authority must be satisfied that there is a reasonable prospect of the government servant returning to duty on the expiry of the leave. It exists because Rule 30(2) recovers the leave salary difference from an employee who does not come back, and a grant made where return was never likely would set up a recovery from the outset.
The authorities competent to grant commuted leave are those listed against serial number 1 of the First Schedule, which groups earned leave, half pay leave, commuted leave, leave not due, extraordinary leave, maternity leave, hospital leave, seamen’s sick leave, paternity leave, child adoption leave, paternity leave for child adoption and child care leave under one head. They are the Ministry or Department of the Central Government, the Administrator, the Comptroller and Auditor-General, the Head of Department, any other authority which is the appointing authority, and any subordinate authority to which the power has been delegated.
Where the prospect of return fails, other leave remains available even though commuted leave does not. Rule 20(1)(a) provides that when a medical authority has reported that there is no reasonable prospect that the government servant will ever be fit to return to duty, leave shall not necessarily be refused. Rule 20(1)(b)(i) allows leave not exceeding twelve months at a time where the medical authority cannot say with certainty that an employee who has acquired a disability will never again be fit, and Rule 20(1)(b)(ii) allows leave after a certificate of disability in Form 3-A, with the provisos remitting or not debiting the leave to the leave account. Rule 20(2) applies Section 20 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016 suo motu to such a case.
The study route: Rule 30(1-A)
Rule 30(1-A) is the one route to commutation at full pay with no medical certificate and no illness: “Half pay leave up to a maximum of 180 days may be allowed to be commuted during the entire service (without production of medical certificate) where such leave is utilized for an approved course of study certified to be in the public interest by the leave sanctioning authority.” The certification of public interest is the condition, and it is made by the leave sanctioning authority rather than by any external body.
The 180 days is a career figure, not an annual one, and the sub-rule states it as a cap on the half pay leave commuted rather than on the days of leave granted. The distinction is real and it is worth being precise about: the two-for-one debit sits in clause (d) of sub-rule (1), which governs commuted leave on a medical certificate, while sub-rule (1-A) speaks directly of the half pay leave allowed to be commuted. Read on its own terms, 180 days of half pay leave supports 90 days of leave at full pay. The rule has not been amended to resolve the point since it was inserted, and the text is what governs.
This route is separate from study leave under Rules 50 to 56, which is not debited to the leave account at all under Rule 54(1). The two are commonly taken together, and Rule 54(2) then binds the combination: study leave combined with leave other than extraordinary leave may not involve a total absence of more than 28 months generally, or 36 months for a course leading to a PhD, a limit that DoPT Notification No. 13026/2/1990-Estt.(L) dated 22 October 1990 set and whose Explanation counts vacation within it.
Maternity, adoption and child care leave: 60 days without a certificate
Three special leaves each carry the same figure: commuted leave not exceeding 60 days, without production of a medical certificate, in continuation of the special leave. The provisions displace the Rule 30(1) certificate requirement expressly rather than by implication, and each sets its own outer bound on the total leave that may follow.
| Provision | Special leave it follows | Commuted leave without a medical certificate | Outer limit on the leave in continuation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rule 43(4)(b) | Maternity leave, 180 days under Rule 43(1) | Not exceeding 60 days | Two years of leave of the kind due and admissible |
| Rule 43-B(3)(b) | Child adoption leave, 180 days under Rule 43-B(1) | Not exceeding 60 days | One year reduced by the age of the adopted child on the date of valid adoption |
| Rule 43-C(6) | Child care leave, up to 730 days under Rule 43-C(1) | Not exceeding 60 days | One year |
Rule 43(4)(b) is the model for the other two. It opens “Notwithstanding the requirement of production of medical certificate contained in sub-rule (1) of Rule 30 or sub-rule (1) of Rule 31”, and then allows leave of the kind due and admissible, including commuted leave for a period not exceeding 60 days and leave not due, up to a maximum of two years, in continuation of maternity leave granted under Rule 43(1). Rule 43-C(6) uses the same opening words with a one-year ceiling. Rule 43-B(3)(b) reaches the same result in different drafting, allowing leave of the kind due and admissible “including leave not due and commuted leave not exceeding 60 days without production of medical certificate”, with a proviso that the facility is not admissible where the employee already has two surviving children at the time of adoption.
The debit is unchanged on all three routes. The special leaves themselves are not debited to the leave account, under Rules 43(5), 43-B(4) and 43-C(7), but the commuted leave taken in continuation of them is ordinary commutation of the half pay leave account and carries the Rule 30(1)(d) charge of two days for one.
Recovery on resignation or voluntary retirement
Rule 30(2) reverses the commutation where the employee does not come back. Where a government servant who has been granted commuted leave resigns from service, or at their own request is permitted to retire voluntarily, without returning to duty, the commuted leave is treated as half pay leave and the difference between the leave salary in respect of commuted leave and the leave salary in respect of half pay leave is recovered. The employee is put back on the half-pay footing they would have had without the commutation.
The proviso carves out two cases, and both are cases where the failure to return is not a choice. No recovery is made where the retirement is by reason of ill-health incapacitating the government servant for further service, which is the invalid pension route, and none is made in the event of death. The trigger for recovery is the employee’s own decision to leave, expressed as a resignation or a request for voluntary retirement, and not the mere fact of not resuming duty.
Rule 30(2) sits alongside a harsher provision for the neighbouring leave. Where an employee who has been granted leave not due resigns or retires voluntarily without returning to duty, Rule 31(2)(a) cancels the leave outright, takes the resignation or retirement as effective from the date the leave commenced, and recovers the whole leave salary, not a difference. Commutation is reversed; an advance is undone.
Returning to duty: the Form 5 fitness certificate
Rule 24(3)(a) bars a government servant who has taken leave on a medical certificate from returning to duty until a medical certificate of fitness in Form 5 has been produced. Commuted leave on medical grounds is leave on a medical certificate, so the Form 5 requirement applies to it, and the medical loop the certificate under Rule 19 opened is closed by the certificate under Rule 24.
Who signs Form 5 depends on grade and on the length of the leave. Rule 24(3)(b) requires a gazetted officer’s fitness certificate to come from a Medical Board, with two exceptions: where the leave is for not more than three months, and where the leave is for more than three months, or is extended beyond three months, and the Medical Board stated when granting the original or extension certificate that the officer need not appear before another Board. In those excepted cases, Rule 24(3)(c) allows the Chief Medical Officer, the District Medical Officer, a civil surgeon, a staff surgeon or a medical officer of equivalent status, including one of the CGHS. For a non-gazetted employee, Rule 24(3)(d) leaves it to the employing authority’s discretion to accept a certificate signed by a registered medical practitioner.
Fitness is not the same as reinstatement in the same chair. Rule 24(4)(a) provides that a government servant returning from leave is not entitled, absent specific orders, to resume as a matter of course the post held before going on leave, and Rule 24(4)(b) requires the return to be reported to the authority which granted the leave, or to the authority specified in the leave order, and orders awaited. The Note to Rule 24(4) allows an employee who had been suffering from tuberculosis to resume on a fitness certificate that recommends light work.
Two rules discipline the edges of the spell. Rule 24(1) bars an early return before the leave expires without the permission of the authority that granted it. Rule 25(1) provides that an employee who remains absent after the end of the leave, without an extension, gets no leave salary for that period, which is debited as though it were half pay leave to the extent such leave is due, the excess being treated as extraordinary leave; Rule 25(2) makes wilful absence after the expiry of leave a ground for disciplinary action.
Who is eligible and who is excluded
Rule 30(1) grants commuted leave to a government servant other than a military officer, and imposes no requirement of permanent status. This is the sharpest contrast with Rule 31, which limits leave not due to a government servant in permanent employ or quasi-permanent employ, except for the separate limb in Rule 31(1-A) covering temporary servants suffering from tuberculosis, leprosy, cancer or mental illness. A temporary employee is credited half pay leave under Rule 29 like anyone else, so the balance to commute exists, and Rule 30 does not shut them out of commuting it.
Rule 33 sets the position for the other categories at entry. A person appointed on probation is entitled to leave as a temporary or a permanent government servant according as the appointment is against a temporary or a permanent post, under Rule 33(2), so commuted leave follows the post. An apprentice is treated differently and more narrowly: Rule 33(3) entitles an apprentice only to leave on a medical certificate at leave salary equivalent to half pay, for not more than one month in any year of apprenticeship, and to extraordinary leave under Rule 32. Rule 34 restarts the clock for a person re-employed after retirement, applying the rules as if the person had entered government service for the first time on the date of re-employment.
Whole classes of employee sit outside these rules altogether. Rule 2 excludes railway servants, members of the All India Services, persons in casual, daily-rated or part-time employment, persons paid from contingencies, workmen in industrial establishments, persons in work-charged establishments, locally recruited staff of Indian missions abroad, persons employed on contract unless the contract provides otherwise, persons governed for leave purposes by the Fundamental Rules or the Civil Service Regulations, and persons serving on deputation from a state government or another source for a limited duration. A railway employee’s commuted leave is regulated by the railway leave rules, and an officer of the Indian Administrative Service by the All India Services (Leave) Rules 1955, in neither case by Rule 30.
Effect on pension, increment and qualifying service
Commuted leave counts in full as qualifying service for pension. Rule 21 of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021 counts all leave during service for which leave salary is payable, and Rule 40(4) of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 makes full leave salary payable throughout commuted leave, so the period passes the test without needing any order in the employee’s favour. Nothing has to be entered in the service book to preserve it, unlike the position for extraordinary leave taken otherwise than on a medical certificate.
The annual increment is unaffected for the same reason. FR 26(b)(ii) excludes only extraordinary leave taken otherwise than on a medical certificate from counting towards the service required for an increment, so a spell of commuted leave counts. The pay fixation and the pay matrix stage are untouched, because the employee draws the pay drawn immediately before the leave and returns to the same stage.
One thing does stop during the leave. Rule 29(1) credits half pay leave in advance in two instalments of 10 days each on 1 January and 1 July, and that credit continues; but the reduction in Rule 29(2)(d) for a period treated as dies non, at one eighteenth of the dies non period subject to a maximum of 10 days, has no application to commuted leave, which is sanctioned leave and not dies non.
Cost at retirement: the leave encashment
Commuted leave has a price that falls at retirement rather than at the time of the illness, because it draws down the account that fills a shortfall in the encashment ceiling. Rule 39(2)(a) of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 requires the competent authority, on retirement at the normal age, to issue an order suo motu granting the cash equivalent of leave salary for both earned leave and half pay leave at credit on the date of retirement, subject to a maximum of 300 days. Where earned leave falls short of 300 days, half pay leave fills the gap; where it does not, the half pay leave balance is worth nothing at encashment.
The half pay leave component is paid at the half rate. Rule 39(2)(b)(ii) computes it as the half pay leave salary admissible on the date of retirement, plus dearness allowance admissible on that date, divided by 30, multiplied by the number of half pay leave days at credit, subject to the combined 300-day cap. Rule 39(2)(c), inserted by DoPT Notification No. 11012/1/2009-Estt.(L) dated 1 December 2009, shuts the door on improving that rate: to make up the shortfall in earned leave, no commutation of half pay leave is permissible.
So the trade is full pay during an illness against cash at superannuation, and each day of commuted leave costs two days of the encashment reserve. An employee who commutes a six-month illness spends 360 days of half pay leave, which is more than the entire 300-day encashment ceiling. Where earned leave is already at or near 300 days at retirement, that spending costs nothing at all, because the half pay leave would not have been encashed anyway. The leave encashment article works the ceiling and the two components in full.
Invalidation is treated separately and less generously for the temporary employee. Rule 39-B(1) grants the cash equivalent for earned leave and half pay leave, subject to the same 300-day maximum and the same computation, to a government servant declared by a medical authority to be completely and permanently incapacitated for further service. Rule 39-B(2) then withholds the half pay leave component from a government servant not in permanent or quasi-permanent employ.
Comparison with half pay leave and leave not due
Commuted leave, half pay leave and leave not due are three ways of drawing on one account, and they differ on exactly three variables: the pay, the debit, and whether the balance exists yet.
| Half pay leave (Rule 29) | Commuted leave (Rule 30) | Leave not due (Rule 31) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leave salary | Half (Rule 40(3)) | Full (Rule 40(4)) | Half (Rule 40(3)) |
| Debit against half pay leave | One day for one | Two days for one, Rule 30(1)(d) | Against half pay leave earned later |
| Balance needed at credit | Yes | Yes | No, it is an advance |
| Medical certificate | Optional; admissible on medical certificate or private affairs, Rule 29(4) | Required, except on the Rule 30(1-A), 43(4)(b), 43-B(3)(b) and 43-C(6) routes | Required, Rule 31(1) |
| Status required | Any government servant | Any government servant other than a military officer | Permanent or quasi-permanent, except Rule 31(1-A) |
| Ceiling | None on accumulation | Half the half pay leave due | 360 days over the entire service |
| Recovery if the employee does not return | None | The leave salary difference, Rule 30(2) | The whole leave salary, Rule 31(2)(a) |
The order of preference follows from the table. An employee who needs full pay on a medical certificate and has a balance commutes it. An employee who can manage on half pay takes ordinary half pay leave and makes the balance last twice as long. An employee with no balance at all cannot commute anything, because there is nothing to commute, and falls back on leave not due at half pay, repaid by future accrual. Leave not due cannot itself be raised to full pay: Rule 40(3) fixes it at half, and no provision of the rules permits its commutation.
Three different things called commutation
Three provisions of Indian service law use the word commutation for three unrelated operations, and conflating them is the most common error made about Rule 30.
Commuted leave under Rule 30 converts half pay leave into leave at full pay during service, at two days of balance for each day granted. Commutation of pension, under the CCS (Commutation of Pension) Rules 1981, converts up to 40% of the basic pension into a lump sum at retirement, computed on the commutation factor table appended to those Rules, with the commuted portion restored after 15 years. The two share a word and no mechanism: one spends a leave account during service, the other exchanges a pension stream for capital after it.
The third is Rule 10 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972, “Commutation of one kind of leave into another”. At the request of the government servant, the authority which granted leave may commute it retrospectively into leave of a different kind which was due and admissible at the time the leave was granted, though the servant cannot claim such commutation as of right. The proviso set by DoPT Notification No. 14015/2/97-Estt.(L) dated 31 December 1997 requires the request to reach the authority within 30 days of joining duty on the expiry of the spell of leave. Rule 10(2) then adjusts the leave salary on the basis of the leave finally granted, recovering any excess paid and paying any arrears due. This is the provision that converts a spell already taken as half pay leave into commuted leave after the event, subject to the 30-day window and to Rule 30 being satisfied on its own terms.
Commutation under work related illness and injury leave
Rule 44 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 carries its own commutation, on different terms from Rule 30. Work related illness and injury leave, introduced by DoPT Notification No. 11020/01/2017-Estt.(L) dated 11 December 2018, gives full pay and allowances for the entire period of hospitalisation under Rule 44(1). Beyond hospitalisation, Rule 44(2)(a) gives a government servant other than a military officer full pay and allowances for the six months immediately following hospitalisation, and half pay for the twelve months beyond that.
The half pay period may then be lifted. Rule 44(2)(a) provides that “The Half Pay period may be commuted to full pay with corresponding number of days of Half Pay Leave debited from the employees leave account”. The charge is a corresponding number of days, not twice the number, which is the drafting distinction from Rule 30(1)(d), and the occasion is a duty-caused illness or injury rather than an ordinary one. Rule 44(4) adds that no earned leave or half pay leave is credited during the period on this leave.
That same 2018 amendment removed the two older duty-related heads. Hospital leave under Rule 46 and special disability leave under Rules 44 and 45 were omitted for central government civilian employees with effect from 14 December 2018, and folded into work related illness and injury leave; the consolidated text carries Rules 45 and 46 as “Omitted”. Special disability leave continues for officers of the All India Services under the All India Services (Leave) Rules 1955, which the CCS amendment did not touch. An employee hurt by the risks of duty today is granted leave under Rule 44, not commuted leave under Rule 30, and the leave account is not charged at two for one.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is commuted leave?
How much half pay leave is used for commuted leave?
Is there a 240-day career cap on commuted leave?
What pay is drawn during commuted leave?
Which medical certificate is needed for commuted leave?
Can commuted leave be taken without a medical certificate?
What happens if the employee does not return to duty after commuted leave?
Is a fitness certificate needed to resume duty after commuted leave?
Can a temporary government servant take commuted leave?
Does commuted leave count as qualifying service for pension?
How does commuted leave affect leave encashment at retirement?
Why take commuted leave instead of leave not due?
Is commuted leave the same as commutation of pension?
Can commuted leave be granted when earned leave is still due?
Who grants commuted leave?
Related Articles
- Half pay leave
- Leave not due
- CCS (Leave) Rules 1972
- Earned leave
- Casual leave
- Extraordinary leave
- Medical certificate for leave
- Study leave
- Maternity leave for central government employees
- Child adoption leave
- Child care leave
- Leave encashment
- Invalid pension
- Voluntary retirement
- Qualifying service
- Commutation of pension
- Commutation factor table
- Work related illness and injury leave
- Hospital leave
- Special disability leave
- Quarantine leave
- Paternity leave
- Joining time
- All India Services
- Indian Administrative Service
- Pay fixation
- Pay matrix
- Dearness allowance
- Department of Personnel and Training
- Central government employees in India
- Take-home salary for central government employees
External references
- Department of Personnel and Training, Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, consolidated text updated as on 24 September 2024
- Department of Personnel and Training
- Department of Personnel and Training, establishment rules and notifications
- Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
- Comptroller and Auditor General of India
References
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 1(2) (commencement, 1 June 1972) and Rule 2 (extent of application and the excluded classes).
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 30 (commuted leave): sub-rule (1) and its clauses (a) and (d), sub-rule (1-A) and sub-rule (2) with its proviso and Note. Clauses (b), (c) and (e) of sub-rule (1) deleted by Ministry of Finance Notification No. 16(5)-E.IV(A)/74 dated 11 April 1975.
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 29 (half pay leave), Rule 31 (leave not due) and Rule 33 (probationers, persons on probation and apprentices).
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 40 (leave salary): sub-rule (1) for the full rate, sub-rule (3) for half pay leave and leave not due, sub-rule (4) for commuted leave, sub-rule (5) for extraordinary leave and sub-rule (8) for the Employees’ State Insurance Act 1948 adjustment.
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 19 (grant of leave on medical certificate, Forms 3 and 4, second medical opinion under sub-rule (3), no right to leave under sub-rule (5), three-day waiver under sub-rule (6)) and Rule 24(3) (fitness certificate in Form 5).
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 43(4)(b), Rule 43-B(3)(b) and Rule 43-C(6) (commuted leave up to 60 days without a medical certificate in continuation of maternity leave, child adoption leave and child care leave).
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 39(2) (cash equivalent of leave salary on retirement, 300-day maximum) and Rule 39(2)(c) (no commutation of half pay leave to make up a shortfall in earned leave), inserted by DoPT Notification No. 11012/1/2009-Estt.(L) dated 1 December 2009; Rule 39-B (invalidation).
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 10 (commutation of one kind of leave into another), with the 30-day proviso inserted by DoPT Notification No. 14015/2/97-Estt.(L) dated 31 December 1997.
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 44 (work related illness and injury leave), substituted by DoPT Notification No. 11020/01/2017-Estt.(L) dated 11 December 2018, which also omitted Rule 45 (special disability leave) and Rule 46 (hospital leave).
- Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rule 21 (leave for which leave salary is payable counts as qualifying service); Fundamental Rule 26(b)(ii) (extraordinary leave otherwise than on a medical certificate excluded from increment-earning service).
- Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, First Schedule (authorities competent to grant leave), Rule 12 (maximum amount of continuous leave), Rule 20 (leave where the servant is unlikely to be fit to return), Rule 25 (absence after expiry of leave) and Rule 54 (accounting of study leave and combination with leave of other kinds).