Dismissal and removal from service

Dismissal and removal from service are the two gravest of the ten penalties in Rule 11 of the CCS (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, and both destroy the pension. Rule 41(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 provides that a government servant who is dismissed or removed from service shall forfeit his pension and gratuity, and Rule 24 of the same Rules provides separately that the penalty entails forfeiture of his past service. An employee removed after twenty-five years therefore keeps neither a reduced pension for the honest years nor the qualifying service that produced it.

The two penalties differ in one line of statutory text and in nothing else. Removal from service, in the words of Rule 11(viii), “shall not be a disqualification for future employment under the Government”. Dismissal from service, in the words of Rule 11(ix), “shall ordinarily be a disqualification for future employment under the Government”. Both are major penalties, both require the full inquiry under Rule 14, and both produce the identical pension outcome.

What survives is the employee’s own money and one discretionary payment. The General Provident Fund balance and the savings accumulation under the Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme are paid out, because both are built from the employee’s own subscriptions. Against the background of total forfeiture, the proviso to Rule 41(1) lets the competent authority sanction a compassionate allowance of not more than two-thirds of the pension that would have been admissible on superannuation, floored at Rs. 9,000 a month by Rule 41(6) once it is sanctioned at all. Leave encashment pays nothing.

This article sets out the two clauses and the single difference between them, the proviso that makes the penalties mandatory on a proved charge of disproportionate assets or bribery, who may pass the order, the Rule 14 inquiry and the three Rule 19 exceptions to it, the forfeiture of pension and of past service, the compassionate allowance and its deadline and floor, what survives and what does not, the position of National Pension System and Unified Pension Scheme subscribers, family pension, the comparison with compulsory retirement and with a simple discharge, the appeal machinery, reinstatement, and re-employment.

The two clauses: Rule 11(viii) and Rule 11(ix)

Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules 1965 lists ten penalties, and removal and dismissal are the last two and the heaviest. Five are minor penalties, running from censure through the withholding of increments of pay. Five are major penalties: reduction to a lower stage in the time-scale of pay, reduction in rank, compulsory retirement, removal from service, and dismissal from service. The classification is not cosmetic. A major penalty can be imposed only after the inquiry procedure in Rule 14, never by the shorter Rule 16 route that serves for a minor penalty, and the difference between the two tracks is set out in the major versus minor penalty proceedings article.

The two clauses are drafted to differ on one point. Clause (viii) creates “removal from service which shall not be a disqualification for future employment under the Government”. Clause (ix) creates “dismissal from service which shall ordinarily be a disqualification for future employment under the Government”. So the rule itself draws the line: removal ends this employment, dismissal ends this employment and ordinarily blocks the next. Neither clause says anything about pension, because the pension consequence is imposed elsewhere, by Rules 24 and 41(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021, and it is the same for both.

The Rules were made by the President under the proviso to Article 309 and clause (5) of Article 148 of the Constitution, after consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor-General for the Indian Audit and Accounts Department, and they came into force on 1 December 1965. Rule 2(g) defines the disciplinary authority as the authority competent under the Rules to impose any of the penalties specified in Rule 11, which is the hinge on which the whole of Part V turns.

Mandatory imposition on a proved charge of disproportionate assets or bribery

For most misconduct the choice of penalty is a judgement for the disciplinary authority, but on two proved charges Rule 11 removes the discretion. The first proviso to Rule 11 provides that in every case in which the charge of possession of assets disproportionate to known sources of income, or the charge of acceptance from any person of any gratification other than legal remuneration as a motive or reward for doing or forbearing to do any official act, is established, the penalty mentioned in clause (viii) or clause (ix) shall be imposed. Proved corruption of these two kinds therefore ends the service and the pension together.

The mandate is not absolute. The second proviso to Rule 11 allows that in any exceptional case, and for special reasons recorded in writing, any other penalty may be imposed. The requirement of written reasons is the control: an authority that departs from the mandatory penalty must say on the file why the case is exceptional, and that record is what an appellate authority or a court examines afterwards. A departure that is unreasoned is a departure that will not survive scrutiny.

Vigilance cases of this kind engage the Central Vigilance Commission at defined stages, and the two charges named in the proviso map onto the offences that a criminal prosecution under the anti-corruption statute also pursues. The disciplinary proceeding and the criminal trial run on different standards of proof, so an acquittal on a criminal charge does not automatically undo a penalty imposed on the same facts by a disciplinary authority acting on the preponderance of probability.

Who may pass the order

Only the President, or an authority that is not subordinate to the appointing authority, can dismiss or remove a civil servant. Rule 12(1) of the CCS (CCA) Rules 1965 provides that the President may impose any of the penalties specified in Rule 11 on any government servant, and Rule 12(2) devolves that power on the appointing authority, on the authority specified in the Schedule, or on an authority empowered by a general or special order of the President.

Over that rule sits a constitutional floor that no rule can lower. Article 311(1) provides that no person who is a member of a civil service of the Union or holds a civil post under the Union shall be dismissed or removed by an authority subordinate to that by which he was appointed. The restriction is on these two penalties and on reduction in rank alone, so an authority junior to the appointing authority may impose a minor penalty but cannot end the service.

Where consultation with the Union Public Service Commission is required, Rule 15(3) of the CCS (CCA) Rules 1965 requires it before the penalty order is made, and Rule 15(3)(b) gives the government servant an opportunity to represent against the advice tendered. One practical consequence follows from the identity of the authority. Rule 22(i) bars an appeal against any order made by the President, so where the President passes the dismissal order the departmental remedy is a review under Rule 29-A and not an appeal, and the appeal, review and revision article sets out the difference.

The Rule 14 inquiry and the Article 311 safeguards

Neither penalty can be imposed without an inquiry, because dismissal, removal and reduction in rank are precisely the three actions Article 311(2) of the Constitution protects against. The government must run the full departmental inquiry under Rule 14 before it can dismiss or remove. Rule 14(4)(a) requires delivery of the articles of charge, the statement of imputations and the lists of documents and witnesses; the employee must be given a reasonable opportunity to defend, to cross-examine the witnesses against them and to lead a defence; and the inquiry report must be supplied before the disciplinary authority decides. The charge sheet article covers the first of those steps in detail.

Rule 19 of the CCS (CCA) Rules 1965 carries the second proviso to Article 311(2) into the rules, and it names three cases in which the inquiry may be dispensed with. The first is where the penalty is imposed on the ground of conduct which has led to the employee’s conviction on a criminal charge. The second is where the disciplinary authority is satisfied, for reasons to be recorded by it in writing, that it is not reasonably practicable to hold an inquiry in the manner provided in the rules. The third is where the President is satisfied that in the interest of the security of the State it is not expedient to hold an inquiry. In a conviction case the first proviso to Rule 19 allows the government servant an opportunity of making a representation on the penalty proposed before any order is made, and the second proviso preserves the requirement to consult the Commission where that consultation is necessary.

These exceptions are read narrowly. The Supreme Court’s judgment in Union of India v. Tulsi Ram Patel, delivered on 11 July 1985, is the leading construction of the second proviso, and the Department of Personnel and Training reproduces it as a Government of India decision under Rule 19 itself. The recorded reasons under clause (ii) must show why an inquiry was not reasonably practicable rather than merely assert it, and they are examinable by a court. Outside the three clauses, a dismissal or removal passed without a proper inquiry is liable to be set aside.

Forfeiture of pension, gratuity and past service

Two separate rules do the damage, and reading only one of them understates it. Rule 41(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021, notified as G.S.R. 868(E) on 20 December 2021, provides that a government servant who is dismissed or removed from service shall forfeit his pension and gratuity. Rule 24 of the same Rules provides that dismissal or removal of a government servant from a service or post shall entail forfeiture of his past service. The first cancels the benefit; the second cancels the service that earned it, which is why nothing survives to be recomputed later.

The scale is easiest to read on a figure. An employee removed from Level 7 of the pay matrix at the entry cell of Rs. 44,900, with twenty-five years of qualifying service, would have drawn a superannuation pension of Rs. 22,450 a month under Rule 44(1), which fixes the pension at 50% of emoluments. The retirement gratuity under Rule 45(1)(a) is one-fourth of emoluments for each completed six-monthly period of qualifying service, and emoluments for gratuity include dearness allowance at 60% from 1 January 2026 under Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 1/1(i)/2026-E.II(B) dated 22 April 2026, so on emoluments of Rs. 71,840 and fifty six-monthly periods the gratuity would have been Rs. 8,98,000. Rule 41(1) removes both figures in a single sentence.

Rule 28(2) closes the last route back. An interruption between two spells of civil service is ordinarily treated as automatically condoned under Rule 28(1), with the pre-interruption service treated as qualifying service, but Rule 28(2) provides that sub-rule (1) does not apply to an interruption caused by resignation, dismissal or removal from service or by participation in a strike. The forfeiture under Rule 24 is therefore the default position and not a presumption that time repairs.

The compassionate allowance and its limits

The single relief against forfeiture is discretionary, capped and time-bound. The proviso to Rule 41(1) provides that the authority competent to dismiss or remove the employee may, if the case is deserving of special consideration, sanction a compassionate allowance not exceeding two-thirds of the pension or gratuity or both which would have been admissible had the employee retired on superannuation pension. It is a power, not an entitlement, and the authority may sanction any fraction within the cap or refuse an allowance altogether.

Rule 44(5) fixes what the fraction is applied to, splitting on ten years of qualifying service. Where the employee had completed not less than ten years, Rule 44(5)(a) makes the reference the superannuation pension calculated under Rule 44(1). Where the employee had not, Rule 44(5)(b) makes it the superannuation service gratuity under Rule 44(2), so the benefit is a fraction of a lump sum rather than a monthly payment. On the Rs. 22,450 notional pension above, the two-thirds ceiling is Rs. 14,967 a month after the whole-rupee rounding in Rule 44(9), and an allowance sanctioned at one-half would be Rs. 11,225.

Three further provisions constrain the discretion. Rule 41(2) requires the competent authority, either on its own or after taking the employee’s representation into consideration, to decide the question not later than three months after the date of issue of the penalty order, a deadline the CCS (Pension) Rules 1972 did not contain. Rule 41(3) names the three matters to be considered: each case on its merit, to decide both whether it deserves special consideration and what the quantum should be; the actual misconduct which occasioned the penalty and the kind of service rendered; and, in exceptional circumstances, factors like the family members dependent on the government servant along with other relevant factors. Rule 41(6) floors a sanctioned allowance at the minimum pension under Rule 44, which is Rs. 9,000 a month.

Gravity alone is not a lawful ground of refusal. In Mahinder Dutt Sharma v. Union of India, Civil Appeal No. 2111 of 2009 decided on 11 April 2014, the Supreme Court held that the authorities had misdirected themselves by treating the severity of the misconduct as decisive, and at paragraph 13 set out five classes of delinquency that ordinarily disentitle an employee: moral turpitude, dishonesty towards the employer, acts for personal gain through corruption or fraud, deliberate harm to third-party interests through misused authority, and conduct otherwise depraved or treacherous. A sanctioned allowance carries dearness relief under Rule 52(1), which names persons drawing a compassionate allowance among the pensioners entitled to it, and the additional pension in old age under Rule 44(6), which names the compassionate allowance in every row of its table.

What survives the penalty and what does not

Forfeiture reaches the government-funded benefits and stops there. The clean line is that the employee keeps their own accumulations and loses everything the government would have paid for past service.

Source: CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, notified 20 December 2021; CCS (Leave) Rules, 1972; Provident Funds Act, 1925.

The General Provident Fund balance is not forfeited, because it is made up entirely of the employee’s own subscriptions and the interest on them. Section 3(1) of the Provident Funds Act 1925 puts the protection in statutory terms: a compulsory deposit in any Government Provident Fund is not in any way capable of being assigned or charged and is not liable to attachment under any decree or order of any Civil, Revenue or Criminal Court in respect of any debt or liability incurred by the subscriber. A criminal court that fines a convicted employee therefore cannot reach the fund to satisfy the fine. The savings element of the Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme is on the same footing: on superannuation, voluntary retirement, resignation, removal or dismissal alike, the member is paid the Savings Fund accumulation with interest to the end of the month of cessation, read from the Department of Expenditure quarterly Table of Benefits.

Leave encashment is the benefit most often assumed to survive, and it does not. Rule 9(1) of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 provides that any claim to leave at the credit of a government servant who is dismissed or removed ceases from the date of dismissal or removal, except as Rule 39 provides, and Rule 39, which is the encashment rule, carries no clause for either penalty. The contrast with compulsory retirement is exact and turns on the word used in Rule 11: compulsory retirement is a retirement, so the cash equivalent of leave survives it, while removal is not.

National Pension System and Unified Pension Scheme subscribers

Rule 41 of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021 does not reach an employee recruited on or after 1 January 2004, because that employee has no defined-benefit pension to forfeit. What ends the entitlement instead is the exit machinery of the pension regulator, and the outcome is materially different: a corpus that exists in the subscriber’s own account cannot be cancelled by a penalty order the way a promise of a future pension can.

For a National Pension System subscriber, removal or dismissal is an exit from service before superannuation, so the premature-exit split in the PFRDA (Exits and Withdrawals under the National Pension System) Regulations 2015, notified on 11 May 2015, applies: up to 20% of the accumulated corpus as a lump sum, and at least 80% to buy an annuity. That reverses the 60:40 proportion a retiring employee would have had at superannuation, and the NPS exit and withdrawal rules article carries the process and the small-corpus relief.

For a Unified Pension Scheme subscriber the entitlement ceases outright. Regulation 13(2) of the PFRDA (Operationalisation of the Unified Pension Scheme under the National Pension System) Regulations of 19 March 2025 provides that the option ceases to apply to a subscriber who has been removed or dismissed from service or who has resigned, notwithstanding enrolment. The one-time switch back to the National Pension System, which is available at resignation and at a compulsory retirement that is not imposed as a penalty, is barred where the employee is removed, dismissed, or compulsorily retired as a penalty.

Family pension after the penalty

Whether the family draws anything turns entirely on whether a compassionate allowance was sanctioned. Rule 50(1)(iii) of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021 grants family pension where a government servant dies after retirement from service and was, on the date of death, in receipt of a pension or a compassionate allowance referred to in those Rules. Where the pension was forfeited under Rule 41(1) and no compassionate allowance was ever sanctioned, the deceased was in receipt of nothing on the date of death, and that basis for a family pension does not arise.

Where an allowance was sanctioned, the family-pension rules treat the recipient as a pensioner. Explanation 3 to Rule 50(2)(a) provides that the pension authorised on retirement, for the purpose of the enhanced family pension, includes the compassionate allowance sanctioned on dismissal or removal from government service. The enhanced rate under Rule 50(2)(a)(iii) is payable for seven years from death or until the deceased would have attained the age of sixty-seven, whichever is less, but the proviso caps it at the pension authorised on retirement or dismissal, so a modest compassionate allowance also caps the enhanced family pension. The ordinary rate under Rule 50(2)(a)(i) follows, subject to the floor of Rs. 9,000 and the ceiling of Rs. 1,25,000 a month in Rule 50(2)(a)(iv). Sanctioning a compassionate allowance therefore protects a second person after the employee’s death, and the family pension calculation article works the rates through.

Comparison with compulsory retirement, resignation and discharge

Four ways of ending a career sit close together in the rules and produce entirely different pension outcomes. The table is the fastest way to read the difference.

Source: CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965, Rule 11; CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rules 24, 26, 40 and 41.

The comparison with compulsory retirement is the one that decides most cases at the penalty stage. Rule 40(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021 grants a compulsory-retirement pension of not less than two-thirds and up to the full superannuation pension, floored by Rule 40(5) at the minimum pension of Rs. 9,000. So two-thirds is a guaranteed floor of a surviving pension under Rule 40 and the discretionary ceiling of an allowance granted against total forfeiture under Rule 41. An employee is always materially better off compulsorily retired than removed, and the disciplinary authority’s choice among the three service-ending penalties settles the whole of the person’s retirement.

A discharge from service, such as the termination of a temporary employee or of a probationer found unsuitable and never confirmed in service, is not a penalty at all. It carries no stigma, needs no disciplinary inquiry, and forfeits nothing. The label is contestable rather than conclusive: a termination that is in substance a punishment for misconduct, but is dressed up as a simple discharge to avoid the inquiry, can be struck down as a colourable exercise that denies the Article 311(2) safeguards, and the first question in most litigation of this kind is whether the order is in substance a dismissal or removal at all.

Appeal, revision and review

A dismissal is not final on the day it is passed, and losing the post does not lose the remedy. Rule 24(1) of the CCS (CCA) Rules 1965 confers the right of appeal on a government servant “including a person who has ceased to be in Government service”, which is what preserves the remedy for someone the order has already removed. Rule 25 fixes the period: no appeal shall be entertained unless preferred within forty-five days from the date on which a copy of the order appealed against is delivered to the appellant, with a proviso letting the appellate authority entertain a late appeal where it is satisfied the appellant had sufficient cause for the delay. The period therefore runs from delivery of the copy and not from the date the order was signed.

Rule 27(2) sets what the appellate authority must decide: whether the procedure laid down in the rules has been complied with and, if not, whether the non-compliance has resulted in the violation of any constitutional provision or in a failure of justice; whether the findings are warranted by the evidence on record; and whether the penalty is adequate, inadequate or severe. Having considered those three questions, the authority may confirm, enhance, reduce or set aside the penalty, or remit the case. An order that does not record reasons on the three is liable to be set aside.

Two further departmental remedies sit outside the appeal. Rule 29 allows revision by the President and by the named higher authorities, with Rule 29(1)(v) confining the appellate authority’s own revisional power to six months from the date of the order proposed to be revised. Rule 29-A allows the President alone to review an order at any time, and only on the discovery of new material or evidence which could not have been produced earlier and which changes the nature of the case. Once the departmental remedies are exhausted the employee can approach the Central Administrative Tribunal, and thereafter the High Court and the Supreme Court on limited grounds.

Reinstatement and the counting of past service

Where the order is set aside, the forfeiture is undone and the past service revives. Rule 25(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021 provides that a government servant who was dismissed, removed or compulsorily retired from service, and is subsequently reinstated on appeal or review, is entitled to count his past service as qualifying service. That single sentence reverses Rule 24 and restores the pension the penalty had cancelled.

The intervening period is treated separately and does not follow automatically. Rule 25(2) provides that the period between the date of dismissal, removal or compulsory retirement and the date of reinstatement, and any period of suspension, shall not count as qualifying service unless it is regularised as duty or leave by a specific order of the authority which passed the order of reinstatement. Obtaining that specific order is therefore a distinct step, and a reinstatement order silent on the intervening period leaves a gap in the qualifying service. Where a court sets aside a dismissal, removal or compulsory retirement on the merits, Fundamental Rule 54-A governs the pay and allowances for the intervening period, and the Fundamental Rules article sets out how the entitlement is fixed. On the leave side, Rule 9(3) of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 entitles a reinstated employee to count the service before dismissal for leave.

Re-employment afterwards

Removal carries no statutory bar on a later government post, because Rule 11(viii) says so in terms, but two pension rules follow the employee into the new appointment. Rule 24 of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021 has already forfeited the past service, so qualifying service in the fresh appointment starts from zero; Rule 28(2) excludes the automatic condonation that would otherwise apply to an interruption, though Rule 28(4) leaves the appointing authority a discretionary power to condone the interruption and treat the pre-interruption service as qualifying.

Where a compassionate allowance is being drawn, Rule 6(2) applies. A person who is in receipt of a compassionate allowance on having been dismissed or removed from service, and who is subsequently re-employed, is not entitled to a separate pension or gratuity for the period of re-employment, except as Rule 19 or Rule 20 of those Rules provides. Rule 52(2) separately suspends dearness relief on the compassionate allowance for the whole period of re-employment under a government, corporation, company, body or bank, unless the three conditions in the proviso to Rule 52(2) are met.

Dismissal is different in degree rather than in kind. The disqualification in Rule 11(ix) is expressed as one that “shall ordinarily be” a bar, and the word ordinarily is what leaves room for a relaxation in a rare case; it is not a permanent statutory disability of the sort a conviction can carry, and it operates on employment under the government rather than on private employment.

Related Articles

• Major versus minor penalty proceedings
• CCS (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965
• Departmental inquiry
• Charge sheet and articles of charge
• Article 311 of the Constitution
• Appeal, review and revision under the CCS (CCA) Rules
• Compassionate allowance
• Compulsory retirement
• Reduction in rank
• Suspension
• Subsistence allowance
• Reinstatement
• Discharge from service
• Withholding of pension
• Central Vigilance Commission
• Central Administrative Tribunal
• CCS Conduct Rules
• CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021
• Central government pension
• Qualifying service
• General Provident Fund
• Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme
• Gratuity for central government employees
• Leave encashment
• Family pension
• Family pension calculation
• Dearness relief
• Additional pension in old age
• National Pension System
• NPS exit and withdrawal rules
• Unified Pension Scheme
• Resignation from government service
• Technical resignation
• Compensation pension
• Fundamental Rules
• Union Public Service Commission
• Central government employees in India
• Probation in central government service
• Confirmation in service
• Pay matrix
• Dearness allowance

External references

• Department of Personnel and Training: CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965
• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
• The Gazette of India
• India Code: the Provident Funds Act, 1925
• Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority
• Central Vigilance Commission
• Central Administrative Tribunal

References

1. Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, in force from 1 December 1965: Rule 11 (ten penalties), clause (viii) removal from service and clause (ix) dismissal from service, with the first proviso mandating one of them on a proved charge of possession of disproportionate assets or of acceptance of gratification, and the second proviso permitting another penalty for special reasons recorded in writing.
2. Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, Rule 12 (disciplinary authorities), Rule 14 (procedure for imposing major penalties), Rule 15(3) (consultation with the Union Public Service Commission) and Rule 19 (special procedure in certain cases), read with Article 311 of the Constitution.
3. Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, notified as G.S.R. 868(E) on 20 December 2021: Rule 24 (forfeiture of service on dismissal or removal), Rule 25 (counting of past service on reinstatement), Rule 28 (condonation of interruption in service) and Rule 6(2) (no separate pension for a period of re-employment).
4. Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rule 41 (forfeiture of pension and gratuity, the proviso empowering a compassionate allowance not exceeding two-thirds of the superannuation pension, the sub-rule (2) three-month deadline, the sub-rule (3) considerations and the sub-rule (6) floor), read with Rule 44(5) (calculation basis) and Rule 40 (compulsory retirement pension).
5. Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rule 50(1)(iii) and Explanation 3 to Rule 50(2)(a) (family pension where the deceased was in receipt of a compassionate allowance), and Rule 52 (dearness relief and its suspension on re-employment).
6. Provident Funds Act, 1925, Section 3(1) (protection of a compulsory deposit in a Government Provident Fund from assignment, charge and attachment).
7. Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 9(1) (claim to leave ceases on dismissal or removal, except as Rule 39 provides), Rule 9(3) (counting of pre-dismissal service on reinstatement) and Rule 39 (cash equivalent of leave salary).
8. Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (Exits and Withdrawals under the National Pension System) Regulations, 2015, notified 11 May 2015 (premature exit before superannuation), and the PFRDA (Operationalisation of the Unified Pension Scheme under the National Pension System) Regulations of 19 March 2025, Regulation 13(2) (option ceases on removal, dismissal or resignation).
9. Mahinder Dutt Sharma v. Union of India, Civil Appeal No. 2111 of 2009, Supreme Court of India, decided 11 April 2014, paragraph 13 (five classes of delinquency ordinarily disentitling a compassionate allowance).
10. Union of India v. Tulsi Ram Patel, Supreme Court of India, decided 11 July 1985 (construction of the second proviso to Article 311(2)), reproduced by the Department of Personnel and Training as a Government of India decision under Rule 19 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965.