Pay fixation on reversion

Pay fixation on reversion is the regulation of a central government servant’s pay on a move to a lower post or a lower stage, governed by Fundamental Rule 15(a) read with Fundamental Rule 22 where the servant asked for the move, by Fundamental Rule 28 where a disciplinary authority transfers the servant to a lower grade or post as a penalty, and by Fundamental Rule 29 where the penalty is a reduction to a lower stage.

The cause decides everything. Four situations put a servant in a lower post, and they share nothing except the downward direction: an officiating or ad hoc arrangement ends, the servant asks in writing for a lower post, a deputation to an ex cadre post finishes, or a disciplinary authority imposes a penalty of reduction. One carries no protection at all. One carries a protection capped at the top of the lower scale. One is fixed on notional cadre pay. One is written by the penalty order itself, inside limits the Fundamental Rules set.

Confusion between them is expensive, because the rule that regulates the pay also decides the procedure. An administrative reversion needs no inquiry. A penalty of reduction to a lower grade or post under clause (vi) of Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 is a major penalty, needs the inquiry under Rule 14, and cannot be imposed by any authority subordinate to the appointing authority.

Two rules are routinely cited for work they do not do. FR 22(I)(a)(3) is a ceiling, not a method of fixation. FR 28 covers a penal transfer to a lower grade or post and does not reach a reduction to a lower stage inside the same scale, which is FR 29(1) territory. The sections below take each cause in turn, then the directions the penalty order must carry, the treatment of increments and the date of next increment, the limits on the power to reduce, and what happens to pay when an appellate authority sets the penalty aside.

Four causes of reversion and the rule that governs each

The starting point is the classification, because the rest follows from it. The table below is a salary-calculator.in construction, assembled from the Fundamental Rules and Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 as they stand on 10 September 2026.

The first three are administrative acts. The last two are punishments, and they attract Article 311 of the Constitution, the safeguards in the CCS (CCA) Rules and the departmental inquiry that goes with a major penalty.

Reversion when an officiating or ad hoc arrangement ends

Officiating pay is not protected on reversion, because the fixation benefit that produced it accrues on regular promotion and not on an officiating or ad hoc appointment. FR 22(I)(a)(1), as substituted by Department of Personnel and Training Notification F. No. 13/1/2017-Estt.(Pay-I), G.S.R. 370, dated 19 November 2018, fixes initial pay on promotion to a post of greater responsibility by giving one increment in the level from which the servant is promoted and placing the servant at the cell equal to the figure so arrived at in the higher level. The option that accompanies it is excluded in three cases named in the clause itself: appointment on deputation to an ex cadre post, appointment on an ad hoc basis, and appointment on direct recruitment basis.

Clause (g) of Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 4/3/2017-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 26 October 2018 puts the consequence plainly: the full benefits of FR 22(I)(a)(1) are available on the regular promotion that follows an ad hoc promotion without break, not on the ad hoc promotion itself. FR 22(I)(a)(1) itself provides that where an ad hoc promotion is followed by regular appointment without break, the option is admissible from the date of the initial appointment or promotion, to be exercised within one month from the date of the regular appointment.

Two further rules mark how contingent officiating pay is. FR 35 allows the Central Government to fix the pay of an officiating government servant at an amount less than that admissible under the rules, and the FR 35 officiating pay limit article works through how that discretion has been exercised. FR 33 caps what a servant may draw when officiating in a post whose pay was fixed at a rate personal to another servant, at a rate not exceeding the rate so fixed.

When the arrangement ends, pay returns to the scale of the post the servant substantively holds. The period spent officiating is not written off for increment purposes, because FR 26(c)(i) preserves it, subject to a limit set out further below. What falls away is the higher rate, and a servant who officiated and then reverted cannot use the officiating spell to claim parity with a junior drawing more, because stepping up of pay is granted on the conditions in Office Memorandum No. 4/3/2017-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 26 October 2018 and an officiating anomaly is not among them.

Reversion to a lower post on the servant’s own request

An own-request move is one of only two exceptions that let the government put a servant in a post carrying less pay. FR 15(a) is short and its structure is the whole point:

The President may transfer a Government servant from one post to another provided that except (1) on account of inefficiency or misbehaviour, or (2) on his written request, a Government servant shall not be transferred to, or except in a case covered by Rule 49, appointed to officiate in a post carrying less pay than the pay of the post on which he holds a lien.

The rule is a bar with exceptions, and the second exception requires a written request. It is also discretionary. FR 15(a) says the President may transfer, so the authority is under no obligation to accede to a request for a lower post, and a lien on the higher post is what the bar is measured against.

The method of fixation is not in FR 22 at all. For the pay matrix it comes from Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 12/1/2016-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 31 March 2017, paragraph 2, with effect from 1 January 2016. The pay of a servant holding a post on a regular basis is fixed at the stage equal to the pay drawn in the higher Level of post held regularly. Where no such stage is available, the pay is fixed at the stage next below in the lower Level and the difference is granted as personal pay, to be absorbed in future increments. Where the maximum of the vertical range of pay progression at the lower Level is less than the pay drawn, the pay is restricted to that maximum under FR 22(I)(a)(3).

The direction matters, because the general rule in FR 22(I)(a)(2) runs the other way. Clause (a)(2) applies where the appointment does not involve the assumption of duties and responsibilities of greater importance, and it places the servant at the stage equal to the pay in respect of the old post held on a regular basis, or at the stage next above where no equal stage exists. On an own-request move under FR 15(a) the Office Memorandum of 31 March 2017 displaces that with the stage next below plus personal pay. The second proviso to clause (a)(2) still settles the increment timing: where pay is fixed at the same stage, the servant continues on that pay until the increment would have fallen due in the old scale.

Before the pay matrix, Office Memorandum No. 13/9/2009-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 21 October 2009, read with Office Memorandum No. 16/4/2012-Pay-I dated 5 November 2012, fixed the pay in the pay band at the stage equal to the pay in the pay band drawn before the move, with the grade pay of the lower post. The Office Memorandum of 31 March 2017 modified both in part.

FR 22(I)(a)(3) does exactly one thing, and it is a ceiling. Where the appointment to the new post is made on the servant’s own request under FR 15(a), and the maximum pay in the time scale of that post is lower than the pay in respect of the old post held regularly, the servant draws that maximum as initial pay. Where the maximum of the lower scale is higher than the pay drawn, clause (a)(3) never engages and the first two limbs of the Office Memorandum of 31 March 2017 fix the pay on their own. This is the capped form of pay protection, and it is weaker than the protection a technical resignation carries under the proviso to FR 22-B.

The cost of the move is not only the ceiling. FR 26(b)(i) counts service in another post for increments in the time scale of the post on which the servant holds a lien, but it excludes by name a post carrying less pay referred to in clause (a) of FR 15. Time spent in the lower post on an own-request move therefore builds nothing in the scale of the post on which the lien is held.

Reversion from an ex cadre deputation post to the parent cadre

Coming back from deputation is fixed on notional cadre pay, not on the pay drawn on deputation. FR 22(IV) provides that where a government servant holding an ex cadre post is promoted or appointed regularly to a post in the cadre, pay in the cadre post is fixed only with reference to the presumptive pay in the cadre post the servant would have held but for holding the ex cadre post. The deputation allowance and any higher scale attached to the borrowing organisation stop with the deputation.

The general protection in the proviso to FR 22(I)(a) is switched off for this case by its own words. That proviso says initial pay shall not, except in cases of reversion to parent cadre governed by proviso (1)(iii), be less than the pay the servant drew on the last occasion. The carve-out is explicit, and it is what stops a deputationist carrying an ex cadre rate back into the parent cadre.

Proviso (1)(iii) to FR 22 does allow ex cadre service to count towards initial fixation, on three conditions stated in the rule: the servant should have been approved for appointment to the particular grade or post in which the previous service is to be counted; all seniors except those regarded as unfit were serving in posts carrying that scale or higher, whether in the department itself or elsewhere, and at least one junior was holding a post in that department carrying that scale; and the service counts from the date the junior is promoted on a regular basis, limited to the period the servant would have held the post in the parent cadre. FR 26(c)(ii) applies the same conditions to increments where the servant returns to a post on a scale lower than the ex cadre post but not on the same scale as the post held at the time of the transfer out.

Reversion as a penalty: what FR 28 covers

FR 28 gives the disciplinary authority a bounded discretion over pay, and it applies to one penalty only:

The authority which orders the transfer of a Government servant as a penalty from a higher to a lower grade or post may allow him to draw any pay, not exceeding the maximum of the lower grade or post, which it may think proper: Provided that the pay allowed to be drawn by a Government servant under this rule shall not exceed the pay which he would have drawn by the operation of Rule 22 read with Clause (b) or Clause (c), as the case may be, of Rule 26.

Two ceilings run at once. The pay allowed cannot exceed the maximum of the lower grade or post, and it cannot exceed what FR 22 read with FR 26(b) or FR 26(c) would have produced. The lower of the two figures binds. Inside those limits the authority may fix pay wherever it thinks proper, which is why the penalty order, and not a formula, is the operative document.

The words of FR 28 also set its boundary. It speaks of a transfer as a penalty from a higher to a lower grade or post, which is the penalty in clause (vi) of Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 and the subject of the reduction in rank article. A reduction to a lower stage inside the same time scale moves no one to a lower grade or post, so FR 28 has no application to it. That case is governed by FR 29(1), and treating FR 28 as the general rule for every penal reduction misstates both the ceiling and the directions the order must carry.

The three penalties of reduction under Rule 11

Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 lists ten penalties, five minor in clauses (i) to (iv) including the inserted clause (iii-a), and five major in clauses (v) to (ix). Three of them reduce pay or rank.

Clause (iii-a) is the most exactly drafted of the three. Four limits keep a pay reduction inside the minor class: one stage only, not more than three years, without cumulative effect, and not adversely affecting the pension. Clause (v) acknowledges the carve-out in its opening words, save as provided for in clause (iii) (a), so breaching any one of the four limits pushes the penalty into clause (v). The major versus minor penalty proceedings article works through the seam.

The class decides the procedure and the authority. A major penalty may be imposed only after the inquiry under Rule 14, subject to Rule 19, while a minor penalty follows the shorter Rule 16 route. Rule 12(4)(a) bars any authority subordinate to the appointing authority from imposing a penalty in clauses (v) to (ix), which restates Article 311(1) of the Constitution inside the rules. A one stage reduction ordered for four years, or with cumulative effect, is therefore not merely a heavier penalty but one imposed by the wrong route and possibly by the wrong authority.

The directions FR 29 requires the order to carry

A penalty order of reduction that states only the penalty is incomplete, because FR 29 uses the words shall state and shall specify. The directions differ by the penalty.

For a reduction as a measure of penalty to a lower stage in the time scale, FR 29(1) requires the authority ordering the reduction to state the period for which it shall be effective, and whether, on restoration, the period of reduction shall operate to postpone future increments and, if so, to what extent. Clause (v) of Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 adds a third direction that FR 29(1) does not itself carry: whether the servant will earn increments of pay during the period of reduction. The order for a lower stage reduction therefore carries three directions drawn from two instruments.

For a reduction as a measure of penalty to a lower service, grade or post, or to a lower time scale, FR 29(2) requires the authority to specify three things: the period for which the reduction shall be effective; whether, on restoration, the period of reduction shall operate to postpone future increments and, if so, to what extent; and whether the servant shall regain the original seniority in the higher service, grade or post or time scale on restoration. Two of the three now sit in the disciplinary rule as well: clause (vi)(a) and (b) of Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 carry the increment and seniority directions on the face of the penalty clause, and the period is a term of the penalty itself, since clause (vi) reads “for a period to be specified in the order of penalty”.

The postponement direction is the one that outlasts the penalty. A reduction ordered for two years with no postponement direction ends cleanly, and pay resumes the progression it would have had. The same reduction with a direction that the period shall postpone future increments shifts the whole increment track by the stated extent, which is the difference the withholding of increment article describes as cumulative effect in the neighbouring clause (iv) penalty.

Increments and the date of next increment on reversion

FR 26 states the conditions on which service counts for increments, and three of its clauses bear on reversion.

FR 26(a) provides that all duty in a post on a time scale counts for increments in that time scale, and its proviso adds a piece of arithmetic that matters after any interruption: for the purpose of arriving at the date of the next increment in that time scale, the total of all periods that do not count for increment shall be added to the normal date of increment. A period of dies non, or extraordinary leave outside the FR 26(b)(ii) exceptions, pushes the date out by its own length.

FR 26(c)(i) is the clause that protects the reverted officiating servant. Where a servant officiating in a post or holding a temporary post on a time scale is appointed to officiate in a higher post, that officiating service in the higher post counts for increments in the time scale of the lower post on re-appointment to it. The counting is restricted to the period during which the servant would have officiated in the lower post but for the appointment to the higher post, and the clause extends to a servant who was not actually officiating in the lower post at the time but would have been.

FR 26(b)(i) works the other way on an own-request move, as set out above in the FR 15(a) section: it counts service in another post for increments in the scale of the lien post, but excludes a post carrying less pay referred to in clause (a) of FR 15.

The date itself then follows the ordinary rule. Rule 10 of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, notified as G.S.R. 721(E) on 25 July 2016, fixes the date of next increment at 1 January or 1 July, so a reversion does not create a bespoke increment date. It changes which level the increment is drawn in, and where a penalty order under FR 29 directs postponement, by how much the date moves.

Limits on the power to reduce

The clearest limit comes from the Supreme Court. In Nyadar Singh v. Union of India, decided on 23 August 1988 and reported at AIR 1988 SC 1979 and (1988) 4 SCC 170, the Court held that clause (vi) of Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 does not permit the reduction of a directly recruited government servant to a service, grade or post never occupied. The reasoning is that such an order amounts to removal from the higher post combined with a substituted recruitment to the lower one, disturbing recruitment policy, and that the lower post may require different skills the servant does not hold. The Court left the power intact where the servant is reduced to a grade or post from which promotion had earlier been earned, and set aside both penalties before it.

The pay matrix supplies a second limit by its own arithmetic. A reduction to a lower stage moves the servant down the cells of the pay level, so the stages available are bounded by the cells below the one occupied. A servant at the first cell of a level has no lower stage in that level, and the one stage penalty in clause (iii-a) has nothing to operate on. Going further is not a reduction to a lower stage at all but a reduction to a lower grade or post under clause (vi), with the FR 29(2) directions and the Rule 14 inquiry that go with it.

The third limit is the one written into clause (iii-a) itself. A one stage reduction that runs beyond three years, or carries cumulative effect, or adversely affects the pension, leaves the minor class. Rule 12(4)(a) then bars any authority subordinate to the appointing authority from imposing it.

Pay when the penalty is set aside or modified on appeal

FR 29-A regulates pay where an order of withholding of increment, or of reduction to a lower service, grade or post, or to a lower time scale, or to a lower stage in a time scale, is set aside or modified by a competent authority on appeal or review. The rule opens with a non obstante clause, so it overrides the ordinary fixation rules.

Where the order is set aside, the servant is given, for the period the order was in force, the difference between the pay to which the servant would have been entitled had the order not been made and the pay actually drawn. Restoration under FR 29-A(a) is therefore not notional. Where the order is modified, pay is regulated as if the order as so modified had been made in the first instance, which can leave a smaller difference payable or none at all.

The Explanation to FR 29-A extends the correction beyond pay. Where the pay drawn for any period before the competent authority’s order is revised, the leave salary and allowances admissible during that period are revised on the basis of the revised pay, with travelling allowance expressly excluded.

Reversion, reduction in rank and Article 311

Reversion and reduction in rank are not synonyms, and the difference is constitutional. A servant officiating in a higher post holds it at the pleasure of the appointing authority and acquires no substantive title to it, so ending the arrangement is an administrative act outside Article 311(2). The test comes from Parshotam Lal Dhingra v. Union of India, AIR 1958 SC 36, which asks about the motive and the foundation of the order rather than its form.

Where the reversion is ordered because the officiating arrangement has lapsed, because the substantive incumbent has returned, or because the servant was found unsuitable for the higher post, it is administrative. Where misconduct is the foundation and the order carries penal consequences, it is a reduction in rank, and the inquiry under Rule 14 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 and the safeguards of Article 311(2) apply whatever the order calls itself.

Nyadar Singh accepted that reduction in rank is the wider expression, and that it refers to the stratification of posts in the official hierarchy rather than to mere seniority. That is why an administrative reversion dressed as a punishment, and a punitive reduction imposed without an inquiry, are both liable to be set aside on the same principle.

Effect on seniority, promotion and pension

Seniority on restoration is not automatic and depends on the order. FR 29(2)(c) requires the authority reducing a servant to a lower service, grade, post or time scale to specify whether the servant shall regain the original seniority in the higher service, grade or post on restoration. Silence on that direction leaves the seniority position unsettled, which is why the rule casts it as a mandatory specification rather than an option.

Promotion is barred by the penalty itself in one case. Clause (vi) of Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 provides that the reduction shall be a bar to the promotion of the servant, during the specified period, to the time scale of pay, grade, post or Service from which he was reduced, which reaches the departmental promotion committee process and the modified assured career progression scheme alike, because both run on the pay and post the servant actually holds. The word “ordinarily” that commentary often attaches to this bar belongs to clause (vi) of Rule 6(1) of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969 and not to the CCS clause, as the reduction in rank article sets out.

Pension follows the pay. Clause (iii-a) of Rule 11 carries an express condition that the one stage reduction shall not adversely affect the pension, and a reduction that does affect it is outside the minor class. The major penalties in clauses (v) and (vi) carry no equivalent bar, so a reduction still in force at retirement lowers the basic pay that forms emoluments under Rule 31 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, and through it the figure the pension calculation rests on.

Related Articles

• Fundamental Rule 22
• Pay fixation
• Pay fixation on promotion
• Pay fixation on re-employment
• Pay protection
• Notional pay fixation
• Personal pay
• Officiating pay
• FR 35 officiating pay limit
• Reversion in government service
• Reduction in rank
• CCS (CCA) Rules
• Major versus minor penalty proceedings
• Departmental inquiry
• Appeal, review and revision under the CCS (CCA) Rules
• Withholding of increment
• Suspension
• Article 311
• Doctrine of pleasure
• Central Administrative Tribunal
• Date of next increment
• Annual increment
• Stepping up of pay
• Dies non
• Lien
• Technical resignation
• Deputation in central government
• Deputation allowance
• Proforma promotion
• Departmental promotion committee
• Modified assured career progression
• Seniority
• Confirmation in service
• Probation in central government
• CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Pay matrix
• Salary by pay level
• CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021
• Pension calculation
• Central government employees in India

External references

• Department of Personnel and Training
• Compilation of the Fundamental Rules and Supplementary Rules, Part I
• Acts and rules published by the Department of Personnel and Training
• CCS (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965
• Establishment (Pay) circulars of the Department of Personnel and Training
• Department of Expenditure
• Orders and circulars of the Department of Expenditure
• Supreme Court of India

References

1. Fundamental Rule 15(a): bar on transferring a government servant to a post carrying less pay than the pay of the post on which a lien is held, subject to the exceptions for inefficiency or misbehaviour, for a written request, and for a case covered by Rule 49.
2. Fundamental Rule 22(I)(a)(1), as substituted by Department of Personnel and Training Notification F. No. 13/1/2017-Estt.(Pay-I), G.S.R. 370, dated 19 November 2018: one increment in the level from which promoted, placement at the equal or next higher cell, and exclusion of the option for deputation to an ex cadre post, ad hoc appointment and direct recruitment.
3. Fundamental Rule 22(I)(a)(2) and its two provisos: fixation at the equal or next above stage, the minimum of the new scale where higher, and the increment timing on same-stage and higher-stage fixation.
4. Fundamental Rule 22(I)(a)(3): where appointment to the new post is made on the servant’s own request under FR 15(a) and the maximum pay in the time scale of that post is lower than the pay in the old post held regularly, the servant draws that maximum as initial pay. Read with Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 12/1/2016-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 31 March 2017, paragraphs 2 and 5, which supply the method of fixation on transfer to a lower Level under FR 15(a) in the pay matrix with effect from 1 January 2016, modifying in part Office Memorandum No. 13/9/2009-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 21 October 2009 and Office Memorandum No. 16/4/2012-Pay-I dated 5 November 2012.
5. Fundamental Rule 22, proviso (1)(iii) and conditions (a) to (c), and Fundamental Rule 22(IV): counting of ex cadre service, and fixation of cadre pay on presumptive pay for a servant returning from an ex cadre post.
6. Fundamental Rule 26(a), 26(b)(i), 26(c)(i) and 26(c)(ii): conditions on which service counts for increments, the exclusion of a post carrying less pay referred to in FR 15(a), and the counting of officiating service in a higher post towards increments in the lower post.
7. Fundamental Rule 28 and its proviso: power of the authority ordering a transfer as a penalty from a higher to a lower grade or post to allow any pay not exceeding the maximum of the lower grade or post, subject to the pay produced by Rule 22 read with clause (b) or clause (c) of Rule 26.
8. Fundamental Rule 29(1) and 29(2): the directions on period, postponement of future increments and, for a reduction to a lower service, grade, post or time scale, the regaining of original seniority on restoration.
9. Fundamental Rule 29-A and its Explanation: regulation of pay, leave salary and allowances where a penalty of withholding of increment or of reduction is set aside or modified by a competent authority on appeal or review.
10. Fundamental Rules 33 and 35: pay of a servant officiating in a post whose pay is personal to another, and the power to fix the pay of an officiating servant at less than that admissible.
11. Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, Rule 11 clauses (iii-a), (v) and (vi), Rule 12(4)(a), Rule 14 and Rule 16: the penalties of reduction, the authority competent to impose a major penalty, and the inquiry routes.
12. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 4/3/2017-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 26 October 2018, clause (g): the full benefits of FR 22(I)(a)(1) are available on regular promotion following an ad hoc promotion without break, not on the ad hoc promotion itself.
13. Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, Rule 10, notified as G.S.R. 721(E) on 25 July 2016: the date of next increment is 1 January or 1 July.
14. Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rule 31: definition of emoluments as the basic pay drawn by the government servant.
15. Nyadar Singh v. Union of India, AIR 1988 SC 1979, (1988) 4 SCC 170, decided 23 August 1988: clause (vi) of Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 does not permit reduction to a service, grade or post never held.
16. Parshotam Lal Dhingra v. Union of India, AIR 1958 SC 36: the motive and foundation test for whether an order is punitive, and reversion from an officiating post as an administrative act.