Special Casual Leave for Central Government Employees

Special casual leave is a non-statutory concession over and above casual leave, for sterilisation, blood donation, sport, disability and more. The day limits.

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

Special casual leave is a concession granted to a central government employee, over and above the ordinary 8 days of casual leave, for a defined list of purposes the government wishes to encourage or accommodate; like casual leave it is not a recognised form of leave under the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 but a non-statutory concession administered through Department of Personnel and Training instructions, and it is not debited to the leave account.

Special casual leave, usually shortened to SCL, is the government’s way of letting an employee be away for a named purpose without spending any leave on it. Where casual leave is the small general-purpose concession for a day or two off, special casual leave is tied to specific activities: sterilisation under the family-welfare programme, blood donation, representing the country or the department in sport, the extra needs of an employee with a disability, recognised trade-union work, and the days lost when a flood or a curfew keeps an employee from reaching office. Each purpose carries its own limit, fixed by a Department of Personnel and Training instruction rather than by the leave rules, and the days are recorded separately so the ordinary 8 days of casual leave are untouched.

This article sets out what special casual leave is and where it sits in the leave framework, then works through the main purposes for which it is granted and the day limit for each, the rules on combining it with other leave, and how it is treated for pay and service. The wider leave code, the recognised kinds of leave that special casual leave sits outside, is in the CCS (Leave) Rules article, and the general-purpose concession it extends is in the casual leave article.

What special casual leave is

Special casual leave is a concession, not a recognised leave. The recognised kinds of leave, earned leave , half pay leave and the rest, are creatures of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972, granted from an account and debited against a balance. Special casual leave is outside that code entirely. It is granted under executive instructions issued by the Department of Personnel and Training over many years, each fixing the purpose and the limit, and it is not charged to any leave account. An employee on special casual leave is not treated as absent and loses nothing from the earned leave or half pay leave balance, which is the whole point of the concession: it lets the government accommodate an activity it wants to support without the employee paying for the time in leave.

Because it is a bundle of executive instructions rather than a single rule, special casual leave has no one governing provision. It is administered as a compendium of Office Memoranda, each addressing a purpose, and the head of office applies the relevant instruction to the case in front of them. That is why the article proceeds purpose by purpose: there is no single quantum of special casual leave, only a set of purpose-specific grants, each with its own limit and its own conditions.

It is applied for and recorded like casual leave, but against the purpose. An employee applies to the sanctioning authority stating the purpose and, where the instruction requires it, produces the supporting document: a medical certificate for a sterilisation or a recanalisation, proof of the donation for blood, the event details for a sporting engagement, or the disability certificate for the disability grants. The days sanctioned are entered in the special casual leave record, kept separately from the casual leave account, so that the running total against each purpose can be checked against the limit for that purpose over the calendar year. Keeping the record purpose by purpose is what lets the office confirm, for instance, that an employee has not exceeded the 30 days of sport-related special casual leave or the 4 days of the disability grant in the year.

How it differs from ordinary casual leave

Special casual leave and casual leave are cousins, and the difference is worth drawing clearly. Ordinary casual leave is a general concession: an employee draws up to 8 days in a calendar year (10 for industrial and operational staff) for any personal reason, without having to justify the purpose, subject to the limit of 5 days at a time. Special casual leave is purpose-specific: it is granted only for one of the named activities, and only to the extent the instruction for that activity allows. An employee cannot draw special casual leave for a general day off, and cannot draw it for a sporting event beyond the days the sports instruction permits.

They interact rather than overlap. Special casual leave is over and above the ordinary 8 days, so using it does not reduce the casual-leave quota, and the two can be combined with each other, subject to the rule that special casual leave joined to casual leave cannot then also be joined to regular leave. The clearest example of the interaction is the employee with a disability, who draws the ordinary 8 days of casual leave and a further 4 days of special casual leave in the year, giving the equivalent of 12 days, a point the casual leave article notes and this article develops below.

Family welfare and sterilisation

The oldest and most detailed body of special casual leave instructions covers sterilisation and the family-welfare programme, and it is the one an employee is most likely to need. The grants are set by day limits that depend on the procedure.

Procedure	Special casual leave
Vasectomy (male employee)	6 working days
Vasectomy a second time, after a certified failure of the first	6 working days
Tubectomy or laparoscopic tubectomy (female employee)	14 days
Tubectomy a second time, after a certified failure of the first	14 days
Salpingectomy after a medical termination of pregnancy	14 days
Male employee whose wife undergoes tubectomy	Up to 7 days
Insertion of an intra-uterine contraceptive device (female employee)	1 day (the day of insertion)
Recanalisation (reversal of a sterilisation)	Up to 21 days, or the actual hospitalisation certified by the authorised medical attendant, whichever is less

A few points hold the table together. The male figure of 6 working days is in working days, so intervening Sundays and holidays do not count against it; the female figure of 14 days is in plain days, so intervening holidays do count. A repeat operation is admissible only where the first has failed and the failure is certified by a medical authority, and it draws the same period again. Where post-operative complications require hospitalisation, further special casual leave may be granted for the period of hospitalisation on a medical certificate. The 7 days for a male employee whose wife is sterilised recognise the husband’s role in the recovery, and the 1 day for the insertion of a contraceptive device is confined to the day of the procedure. These grants can be prefixed or suffixed to regular leave or to casual leave, but not to both together.

Blood donation

An employee who donates blood at a licensed or recognised blood bank on a working day is granted special casual leave for the day of donation. The concession is confined to the day itself, not the days around it, and it rests on an old instruction, the Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum of 8 October 1956, that has stood since the early years of the service.

It was widened in 2017. The Office Memorandum dated 28 December 2017 extended the concession to apheresis donation, the donation of platelets, plasma or other blood components through a machine that returns the rest of the blood to the donor, and allowed it for the day of donation up to four times in a year, on production of valid proof of the donation. So an employee who gives whole blood, or who donates components by apheresis, draws special casual leave for the day, with the apheresis version capped at four occasions in the year.

Sport, adventure and cultural activities

Special casual leave supports employees who represent the country or the department in sport and allied activities, under a single overall ceiling. Special casual leave for participation in sporting events of national or international importance, for coaching or training camps, for pre-selection trials, for acting as a manager, coach, official or administrator at such events, and for commentating on them, is capped at 30 days in a calendar year taken together. The 30-day figure is one overall limit for all the sporting purposes counted together, not 30 days for each purpose, and it is fixed by the Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 6/1/85-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 16 July 1985. An employee who plays in one tournament and officiates at another in the same year draws both against the single ceiling, so the 30 days is the outer limit of all sport-related special casual leave in the year, whatever the mix of activities.

The same ceiling absorbs the adventure and cultural activities the government encourages. Mountaineering and trekking expeditions organised by recognised bodies, and participation in recognised cultural activities, are granted special casual leave within the same 30-day limit, so an employee who takes part in both sport and an expedition in the same year draws the two against the one ceiling rather than each separately. Beyond this, inter-ministerial tournaments carry a smaller grant of up to 10 days in a calendar year, recorded as special casual leave for the days of participation and the necessary travel.

Persons with disabilities

Special casual leave carries two distinct grants for employees with disabilities, and both are current. The first is a general top-up: an employee with a disability is granted 4 days of special casual leave in a calendar year for specific requirements relating to the disability, introduced on the recommendation of the 6th Central Pay Commission through the Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 25011/1/2008-Estt.(A) dated 19 November 2008. Because it is over and above the ordinary 8 days of casual leave, it gives a disabled employee the equivalent of 12 days in the year.

The second is activity-specific: a further special casual leave of up to 10 days in a calendar year is granted for taking part in conferences, seminars, training and workshops connected with disability and its development, under the Office Memorandum dated 14 November 2007. The two grants stand together, the 4 days for the ordinary needs of the disability and the 10 days for disability-related events, and both are recorded as special casual leave. The Department of Personnel and Training’s compendium of instructions on reservation and facilities for persons with benchmark disabilities carries these grants, so they are part of the present framework rather than a lapsed provision.

Absence beyond the employee’s control

Special casual leave covers the days an employee loses through no fault of their own. Where an employee is unable to reach office because of a cause entirely beyond their control, a failure of public transport, a bandh, picketing, a riot, a curfew or a natural calamity such as a flood, special casual leave may be granted for the days lost, so the absence is not charged to casual leave or treated as leave. The grant rests on a line of instructions running from the Office Memorandum of 1 November 1971 through the consolidations of 1979 and 1987.

Two conditions shape it. For a transport failure the employee ordinarily has to reside more than 5 kilometres from the office, on the reasoning that someone living close enough to walk in is not truly prevented from attending; for picketing, a disturbance or a curfew, where the obstacle is not distance, no such condition applies. And the grant is discretionary: the head of office decides, on the facts, whether the employee was genuinely prevented from attending and for how many days, so it is not an automatic entitlement but a concession applied case by case.

Trade union and staff-association work

Special casual leave supports the recognised machinery of staff representation. An office bearer of a recognised service association or union is granted special casual leave for association work up to 20 days in a calendar year; an outstation delegate or a member of an all-India executive committee attending meetings is granted up to 10 days; and a local delegate or member up to 5 days. These grants rest on the Office Memorandum of 8 April 1969 and the instructions that followed it, and they let the recognised associations function without their office bearers spending personal leave on association business.

Work under the Joint Consultative Machinery , the formal structure through which recognised staff associations and the government negotiate, is treated similarly. Members of the staff side attending meetings of the machinery are granted special casual leave not exceeding 5 days for the consultation, with up to 10 days allowed for the preparation of a case, under the Office Memorandum of 30 October 1970. The common thread is that participation in recognised representative work is accommodated through special casual leave rather than charged to the employee’s own leave.

Other recognised purposes

Several smaller heads round out the list, each with its own limit.

Purpose	Special casual leave
St. John Ambulance Brigade duty	Up to 3 days a year (half a day where the duty is for half a day)
Ex-servicemen attending a medical board or an artificial-limb centre	Up to 15 days a year
Inter-ministerial tournaments	Up to 10 days a year

These are grants for defined and limited occasions, and they follow the pattern of the whole scheme: a named purpose, a day limit set by instruction, and the days recorded as special casual leave and not charged to the leave account. The list is not closed, because the government adds a purpose from time to time by a fresh instruction, but the heads above are the well-established ones an employee is likely to meet.

Combining special casual leave and counting the days

Two mechanical rules govern how special casual leave is taken. The first is the combination rule: special casual leave can be combined with regular leave, such as earned leave , or with ordinary casual leave, but not with both together. It may be prefixed or suffixed to the leave it is joined to, so an employee can add earned leave to a spell of special casual leave, or add casual leave, but cannot bridge special casual leave between casual leave on one side and earned leave on the other.

The second is the counting rule, and it turns on how the limit is worded. Where the special casual leave limit is expressed in plain days, intervening Sundays and closed holidays are counted towards the limit, so a 14-day tubectomy grant that spans two Sundays uses those Sundays up. Where the limit is expressed in working days, as the 6 working days for vasectomy are, intervening Sundays and holidays are not counted, so the six working days can span a longer calendar stretch. Reading the limit correctly, days against working days, decides how far the grant reaches across a week.

Common errors

A handful of misreadings recur, and each turns on a specific figure or condition.

Treating special casual leave as part of the 8 days of casual leave. It is over and above the ordinary casual leave and is recorded separately, so using it does not eat into the casual-leave quota.
Quoting 7 days for a female sterilisation. The 7 days is the grant for a male employee whose wife undergoes tubectomy; the female employee’s own tubectomy is 14 days, and the two are often confused.
Reading the sportspersons’ grant as 30 days for each event. The 30 days is one overall ceiling for all sport-related special casual leave in the calendar year, however many events the employee takes part in.
Believing intervening Sundays and holidays never count. They count where the limit is worded in plain days, such as the 14-day tubectomy grant; they are excluded only where the limit is in working days, such as the 6 working days for vasectomy.
Assuming blood-donation special casual leave covers rest around the donation. It is confined to the day of donation, with apheresis donation allowed for the day up to four times in a year.
Thinking any delay in reaching office qualifies. The transport-failure ground needs the employee to reside more than 5 kilometres from the office and to have been genuinely prevented from attending, and the grant is discretionary with the head of office rather than automatic.

Pay and service treatment

For the pay slip and the service record, special casual leave is treated as duty. The days are paid at full salary, since the employee is not on any reduced-pay leave, and the period is not a break in service. Because special casual leave is not debited to the leave account, the earned leave and half pay leave balances are untouched, so the earned leave available for encashment at retirement, covered in the leave encashment article, is not reduced by taking special casual leave. And because the period counts as duty, it does not disturb the increment or the qualifying service for pension.

This treatment is what distinguishes special casual leave from actually taking leave. An employee who used earned leave for a sterilisation, a sporting event or a day lost to a flood would spend that leave and reduce the balance available for encashment; special casual leave lets the same absence pass without any such cost, which is the concession the scheme exists to give. It is, in that sense, closer to being on duty than to being on leave.

Applicability

Special casual leave is a concession for central government civilian employees, administered through Department of Personnel and Training instructions. Employees under other services are governed by their own administrations’ instructions, which broadly follow the central pattern but are separate: members of the All India Services and railway servants draw special casual leave under the instructions of their own cadres, and staff of autonomous bodies under rules that adopt or track the central concession. The day limits above are the central-government ones, and an employee should confirm the figure for a particular purpose under the instructions that govern their own service, since special casual leave is a compendium of orders that is amended from time to time.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is special casual leave?

Special casual leave (SCL) is a concession granted to a central government employee, over and above the ordinary 8 days of casual leave, for a defined list of purposes the government wishes to encourage or accommodate, such as sterilisation under the family-welfare programme, blood donation, sport, the needs of employees with disabilities, and absence caused by events beyond the employee’s control. Like casual leave it is not a recognised form of leave under the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972; it is a non-statutory concession administered through Department of Personnel and Training instructions, and it is not debited to the leave account.

How many days of special casual leave are given for sterilisation?

A male employee who undergoes vasectomy gets 6 working days of special casual leave. A female employee who undergoes tubectomy, including laparoscopic tubectomy or salpingectomy after a medical termination of pregnancy, gets 14 days. A male employee whose wife undergoes tubectomy gets up to 7 days. A female employee gets 1 day for the insertion of an intra-uterine contraceptive device. Recanalisation, the reversal of a sterilisation, carries up to 21 days of special casual leave or the actual period of hospitalisation certified by the authorised medical attendant, whichever is less. A repeat operation after a certified failure of the first draws the same period again.

Is special casual leave debited to the leave account?

No. Special casual leave is not debited against the leave account, so it does not consume earned leave or half pay leave, and those balances keep accruing. The employee is not treated as absent for the days covered. That is what makes it a concession rather than a form of leave: it lets the government accommodate a named activity without charging the time to the employee’s leave.

How much special casual leave do sportspersons get?

Special casual leave for participation in sporting events of national or international importance, coaching or training camps, pre-selection trials and related sporting duties is capped at 30 days in a calendar year taken together. The 30-day ceiling is a single overall limit covering all the sporting purposes, not 30 days for each, and it also absorbs mountaineering and trekking expeditions and recognised cultural activities. The grant rests on the Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 6/1/85-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 16 July 1985.

What special casual leave do employees with disabilities get?

An employee with a disability is granted 4 days of special casual leave in a calendar year for specific requirements relating to the disability, on the recommendation of the 6th Central Pay Commission through the Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 25011/1/2008-Estt.(A) dated 19 November 2008. In effect this gives a disabled employee the equivalent of 12 days against the ordinary 8. A further special casual leave of up to 10 days in a calendar year is granted for taking part in conferences, seminars, training and workshops related to disability, under the Office Memorandum dated 14 November 2007. Both are over and above ordinary casual leave and are recorded as special casual leave.

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

Special casual leave can be combined with regular leave, such as earned leave, or with ordinary casual leave, but not with both together. It may be prefixed or suffixed to the leave it is joined to. Where the special casual leave limit is expressed in plain days, intervening Sundays and closed holidays count towards the limit; where it is expressed in working days, as with the 6 working days for vasectomy, intervening holidays are not counted.

Is special casual leave granted for blood donation?

Yes. An employee who donates blood at a licensed or recognised blood bank on a working day is granted special casual leave for the day of donation only. The concession was later extended to apheresis donation, the donation of platelets, plasma or other blood components, for the day of donation, up to four times in a year, under the Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum dated 28 December 2017, on production of valid proof of the donation.

Can special casual leave be granted when I cannot reach office because of a bandh or floods?

Yes. Where an employee is unable to reach office because of a cause entirely beyond their control, a failure of public transport, a bandh, picketing, a curfew, a riot or a natural calamity, special casual leave may be granted for the days lost, so the absence is not charged to casual leave or treated as leave. For a transport failure the employee ordinarily has to reside more than 5 kilometres from the office; for picketing, a disturbance or a curfew no distance condition applies. The decision rests with the head of office on the facts of the case.

External references

References

Department of Personnel and Training consolidated instructions on casual leave and special casual leave (compendium of Office Memoranda).
Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 6/1/85-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 16 July 1985 (special casual leave for sportspersons, up to 30 days in a calendar year).
Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 25011/1/2008-Estt.(A) dated 19 November 2008 (4 days of special casual leave in a calendar year for employees with disabilities, on the 6th CPC recommendation).
Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum dated 14 November 2007 (up to 10 days of special casual leave for disability-related conferences, seminars and training).
Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum dated 28 December 2017 (extension of blood-donation special casual leave to apheresis donation, up to four times a year).
Department of Personnel and Training instructions on special casual leave for sterilisation and family welfare (vasectomy 6 working days; tubectomy 14 days; recanalisation up to 21 days) and for absence caused by circumstances beyond the employee’s control.