Work Related Illness and Injury Leave (WRIIL)

Work related illness and injury leave is full pay for a duty-caused illness or injury under Rule 44, replacing special disability and hospital leave since 2018.

Updated 20 July 2026 · Reviewed by Salary-Calculator.in

Work related illness and injury leave, or WRIIL, is a leave for a central government employee whose illness or injury is attributable to or aggravated by official duty, under Rule 44 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972, substituted by the CCS (Leave) (Fourth Amendment) Rules 2018 to replace special disability leave, hospital leave and sick leave; it gives full pay and allowances for the whole period of hospitalisation and a further paid period that varies by the category of employee.

Work related illness and injury leave is the leave for an employee hurt or made ill by the job. Where half pay leave is the reserve for any long illness at half pay, WRIIL is the dedicated head for the illness or injury that the service itself caused, and it is paid accordingly: full pay and allowances for as long as the employee is hospitalised, with no cap on that period, and full pay for months after. It is not drawn from the leave account and does not run down the earned leave or the half pay leave balance, because it is a standalone entitlement, not an ordinary leave the employee has built up. Its defining condition is in its name: the illness or injury must be work related, attributable to or aggravated in the performance of duty, and certified as such.

WRIIL is a recent consolidation. On the recommendation of the 7th Central Pay Commission, three older heads, special disability leave, hospital leave and sick leave, were subsumed into a single duty-related leave, and the new WRIIL was substituted into Rule 44 while the old Rules 45 and 46 were omitted. This article sets out what WRIIL is and what it replaced, the attributability condition that gates it, the entitlement during and after hospitalisation, the way that entitlement differs across categories of employee, the commutation of the half-pay stretch, the treatment of the leave account, and the interaction with the compensation law. The wider leave code is in the CCS (Leave) Rules article.

What WRIIL is and what it replaced

Work related illness and injury leave was created by the CCS (Leave) (Fourth Amendment) Rules 2018, notified as G.S.R. 1209(E) by the Department of Personnel and Training on 11 December 2018 and effective from 14 December 2018, implementing the 7th Central Pay Commission. A clarificatory Office Memorandum followed on 30 August 2019, and the 2019 date is often quoted as if it were the substituting instrument, but the operative amendment is the December 2018 one; the 2019 memorandum only answered questions that had arisen on it.

The reform consolidated three earlier leaves. The 7th Central Pay Commission recommended that special disability leave, hospital leave and sick leave be replaced by one work related illness and injury leave, on the reasoning that the older heads overlapped and carried different and dated limits. The amendment gave effect to this: the new WRIIL was substituted into Rule 44, which had previously held special disability leave for an intentionally inflicted injury, and the old Rule 45, special disability leave for an accidental injury, and Rule 46, hospital leave, were omitted. The practical consequence is that special disability leave and hospital leave are no longer live heads of leave: an employee who would once have drawn one of them now draws WRIIL instead, under the single, more generous provision.

The attributability condition

WRIIL is gated by a single condition: the illness or injury must be attributable to, or aggravated in, the performance of official duties, or in consequence of the employee’s official position. This is what makes WRIIL a duty-related leave rather than a general sick leave. An ordinary illness that has nothing to do with the job does not qualify, and for that the employee draws on earned leave , half pay leave or the commuted leave taken from it; WRIIL is reserved for the harm the service itself caused.

The condition is established by medical certification. The claim is supported by the certificate of the competent medical authority, under the medical-certificate provisions of the leave rules, which both establish the illness or injury and speak to its connection with duty. The medical certificate is therefore central to a WRIIL claim in a way it is not for leaves that are granted for any purpose, because the whole entitlement turns on the illness or injury being certified as work related. Where the attributability is not made out, the leave is not WRIIL, and the employee falls back on the ordinary leaves.

The condition has two limbs, and the second is easy to miss. WRIIL covers an illness or injury attributable to duty, the straightforward case of a condition the service caused, and also one aggravated in the performance of duty, the case of a pre-existing condition that the work made worse. So an employee whose earlier condition is worsened by the demands or the exposure of the job can qualify for WRIIL on the aggravation limb, even though the service did not originally cause the condition, provided the medical authority certifies the aggravation as connected with the duty. The gate is the connection with duty, whether by causation or aggravation, not the origin of the condition alone.

The entitlement during and after hospitalisation

The entitlement has two phases, the hospitalisation and the period after it, and the first phase is the same for everyone. During the entire period of hospitalisation for the work-related illness or injury, the employee draws full pay and allowances, with no cap on the length of the hospitalisation. However long the employee is in hospital for the duty-related condition, the pay continues in full, which is the core of the reform: a serious duty-related illness or injury does not push the employee onto reduced pay while they are under treatment in hospital.

The period after hospitalisation is where the entitlement varies by the category of employee, and the table sets out the three cases.

Category of employee	During hospitalisation	After hospitalisation
Civilian government servant (and the Railway Protection Force and Union Territory police forces)	Full pay and allowances, the entire period	6 months at full pay and allowances, then 12 months at half pay (commutable to full pay by debiting half pay leave)
Officers of the Central Armed Police Forces (and defence and coast guard officers)	Full pay and allowances, the entire period	6 months at full pay and allowances, then 24 months at full pay without allowances
Personnel below officer rank of the CAPF (and defence and coast guard personnel below officer rank)	Full pay and allowances, the entire period	Full pay and allowances, with no limit on the period

For the ordinary civilian employee, then, the shape is full pay while in hospital, six months at full pay after, and twelve months at half pay beyond that. The categories reflect the different exposure of the forces: the officer of the Central Armed Police Forces gets a longer full-pay tail, and personnel below officer rank draw full pay and allowances without any limit, because their duty carries the greatest risk of a disabling work-related injury.

Commutation of the half-pay period

For the civilian employee, the twelve months of half pay that follow the six months of full pay need not be taken at half pay. That stretch may be commuted to full pay, with a corresponding number of days of half pay leave debited from the employee’s leave account, so the employee draws full pay for the period and pays for the top-up out of the half pay leave balance. The commutation is optional: an employee who wants to preserve the half pay leave balance can take the twelve months at half pay, and an employee who would rather have full pay can commute, at the cost of the half pay leave debited.

This is the one point at which WRIIL touches the ordinary leave account, and it is a choice the employee makes rather than an automatic debit. It means a civilian on a long duty-related illness is not forced onto half pay in the second year: with a half pay leave balance to draw on, the whole period after hospitalisation can be at full pay, the first six months by right and the next twelve by commutation. Without a balance, or by choice, the twelve months are at half pay.

An illustration

Take a civilian employee injured in an accident on duty who is hospitalised for three months and then needs a further eighteen months to recover before resuming work. WRIIL pays the three months of hospitalisation at full pay and allowances, with no question of a cap on the hospital period. The eighteen months of recovery after discharge are then paid in two parts: the first six months at full pay and allowances, by right, and the next twelve months at half pay. If the employee has half pay leave to spare and wants full pay throughout, the final twelve months can be commuted to full pay by debiting the corresponding half pay leave, so the whole twenty-one months, three of hospitalisation and eighteen of recovery, are drawn at full pay, with only the last twelve months costing anything from the leave account. If the employee would rather keep the half pay leave balance, the last twelve months are at half pay and the leave account is left entirely untouched. Either way the earned leave is not spent, and neither earned leave nor half pay leave accrues over the twenty-one months.

The illustration shows the shape of the entitlement: unlimited full pay in hospital, six months full pay after, and a twelve-month half-pay tail the employee can convert to full pay at the cost of half pay leave. It is a far more protective arrangement than drawing ordinary earned leave and half pay leave for the same recovery, which would run the balances down and, once exhausted, leave the employee on unpaid extraordinary leave.

The leave account, and no accrual during WRIIL

WRIIL sits outside the ordinary leave account. It is a standalone entitlement and is not debited to the leave account, apart from the optional commutation just described, so taking WRIIL does not run down the earned leave or the half pay leave balance the way a spell of ordinary leave would. In this it is like the other special heads, maternity leave and child care leave, that give paid absence without spending the leave the employee has built up.

There is a counterpart the employee should note. During the WRIIL period no earned leave and no half pay leave is credited to the employee, so while WRIIL protects the existing balances from being spent, it does not add to them during the leave. The accrual of the ordinary leaves pauses for the WRIIL period and resumes when the employee returns to duty. The balances are neither drawn down nor built up during WRIIL, except where the employee chooses to commute the half-pay stretch and so debits half pay leave.

Interaction with the compensation law

Where the Employees’ Compensation Act, 1923, formerly the Workmen’s Compensation Act, applies to the employee and the work-related injury, the leave salary under WRIIL is reduced by the compensation payable under that Act. The Employees’ Compensation Act provides for compensation for an employment injury, and the leave rules avoid a double payment for the same injury by setting off the compensation against the WRIIL leave salary. So an employee covered by that Act does not draw both the full WRIIL leave salary and the Act’s compensation in full for the same period; the WRIIL pay is reduced by the compensation.

This interaction affects only the employees to whom the compensation Act applies, and it is a set-off rather than a bar: WRIIL is still the governing leave, and only the leave salary is adjusted for the compensation received. For the general run of central government civilian employees, to whom the Act may not apply, the WRIIL leave salary is drawn in full on the terms set out above.

WRIIL and the disability pension

WRIIL covers the treatment and recovery phase of a duty-related illness or injury, and it is worth seeing where it ends and the pension side begins. WRIIL is a leave: it keeps the employee on pay while they are treated and recover, on the expectation that they return to duty. Where the illness or injury proves permanently disabling and the employee cannot resume service, the position moves out of the leave rules and into the pension rules, and the two are sequential, not alternatives.

An employee who is disabled by an injury or illness attributable to government service, and who is retired on that account, may be granted a disability pension under the extraordinary-pension provisions, which is the pension counterpart to the WRIIL leave: both turn on the disability being attributable to service. An employee retired for an incapacity that is not attributable to service is instead invalided out on an invalid pension . So the ladder runs from WRIIL, the paid leave during treatment, to a disability or invalid pension if the employee cannot return. WRIIL is the first response to a work-related injury, and the disability pension the last, and an employee facing a serious duty-related condition may pass from one to the other if recovery does not allow a return to duty.

No single overall cap

WRIIL should not be described as capped at any one figure, because for the civilian employee there is no single overall ceiling. The entitlement is unlimited full pay during hospitalisation, then six months at full pay, then twelve months at half pay, and the removal of the old clubbing ceilings was a deliberate aim of the reform. The special disability leave that WRIIL replaced carried limits that could leave an employee on reduced pay or exhausted leave during a long duty-related illness, and the consolidation was meant to remove that.

The only fixed post-hospitalisation figure in the rule is the 24-month full-pay tail for a CAPF officer, and personnel below officer rank have no limit at all. So the “24 months” that is sometimes quoted as a WRIIL cap is the CAPF-officer full-pay period, not a general ceiling, and applying it to a civilian, or treating WRIIL as limited to 24 months across the board, is a misreading. The civilian entitlement is the unlimited hospitalisation plus the six-and-twelve months set out above.

WRIIL and the leaves it replaced

Seeing WRIIL against the heads it replaced shows what the reform changed. Special disability leave was granted for a disability caused by an injury attributable to duty, or by illness contracted in the course of specified duty, and it carried its own limits and a part-full, part-half-pay structure. Hospital leave was granted to employees in certain posts for illness or injury directly due to risks of the job, for a period at full or half pay. Sick leave, the third head, applied to certain categories such as departmental staff. All three overlapped in covering the duty-related illness or injury, and all three are now gone, folded into WRIIL.

The gain for the employee is a single, clearer, and more generous provision. The full pay runs for the whole hospitalisation without the ceilings the old heads imposed, the post-hospitalisation period is defined and, for the civilian, commutable to full pay, and the whole thing is off the leave account. An employee facing a duty-related illness or injury today does not have to work out which of three old heads applies; there is one head, WRIIL, and the only question is whether the illness or injury is certified as attributable to duty.

Applying for WRIIL

WRIIL is applied for like other medical leave, but the application must establish the work-related character of the illness or injury. The employee applies to the leave-sanctioning authority with the certificate of the competent medical authority, which establishes the illness or injury and its attribution to, or aggravation in, the performance of duty. The authority sanctions WRIIL on that footing, for the period of hospitalisation and the further period the employee’s category allows, and settles whether any commutation of the half-pay stretch is sought.

Because the entitlement turns on attributability, the certification is the heart of the claim, and an employee should ensure the medical authority addresses not only the illness or injury but its connection with the duty performed, since that connection is what distinguishes WRIIL from the ordinary sick provision. Where the connection is clear, an accident on duty, an injury sustained in the performance of the job, a condition contracted through the work, the leave follows on the terms above; where it is not, the employee is on earned leave or half pay leave for an ordinary illness.

Common errors

A few misreadings recur, and each turns on a specific feature of the head.

Dating WRIIL to 2019. It was substituted into Rule 44 by the CCS (Leave) (Fourth Amendment) Rules 2018 (G.S.R. 1209(E), 11 December 2018); the 30 August 2019 document is a clarificatory Office Memorandum, not the amendment.
Treating WRIIL as a general sick leave. It is only for an illness or injury attributable to or aggravated by duty; an unrelated illness is covered by earned leave or half pay leave.
Quoting a 24-month cap for everyone. The 24-month full-pay tail is the CAPF-officer figure; a civilian has unlimited hospitalisation plus 6 months full and 12 months half, and personnel below officer rank have no limit.
Thinking WRIIL is debited to the leave account. It is standalone; the only leave-account entry is the optional commutation of the 12-month half-pay stretch.
Assuming half pay leave and earned leave accrue during WRIIL. No earned or half pay leave is credited during the WRIIL period, though the existing balances are not drawn down either.
Looking for special disability leave or hospital leave as current options. Both were omitted from the rules in 2018 and are subsumed into WRIIL.

Applicability

Rule 44 applies to central government employees governed by the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972, with the three categories set out above, civilian employees (and the Railway Protection Force and Union Territory police), officers of the Central Armed Police Forces and the defence and coast guard services, and personnel below officer rank of those forces. Members of the All India Services and railway servants are under their own leave rules, which carry corresponding provisions. An employee should confirm the entitlement under the leave rules that govern their own service, though for the great majority of central government civilian employees it is the WRIIL of Rule 44, with the civilian entitlement, set out here.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is work related illness and injury leave?

Work related illness and injury leave, or WRIIL, is a leave under Rule 44 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 for an employee who suffers an illness or injury that is attributable to, or aggravated in, the performance of official duty. It gives full pay and allowances for the entire period of hospitalisation, and a further paid period afterwards that depends on the category of employee. It was substituted into Rule 44 by the CCS (Leave) (Fourth Amendment) Rules 2018 to replace special disability leave, hospital leave and sick leave with a single duty-related leave.

How much work related illness and injury leave does a civilian employee get?

For a civilian central government employee, WRIIL gives full pay and allowances for the entire period of hospitalisation, then full pay and allowances for a further 6 months immediately after, and then half pay for the next 12 months. The 12-month half-pay period can be commuted to full pay by debiting a corresponding number of days of half pay leave from the employee’s leave account, so an employee is not forced onto half pay during a duty-related illness if they have half pay leave to draw on.

Is work related illness and injury leave debited to the leave account?

No. WRIIL is a standalone entitlement and is not debited to the ordinary leave account. During the WRIIL period no earned leave or half pay leave is credited to the employee, and the only entry against the leave account is the optional one, where the employee chooses to commute the 12-month half-pay stretch to full pay by debiting half pay leave. Apart from that commutation, the leave account is untouched.

What did work related illness and injury leave replace?

It replaced three earlier heads. On the recommendation of the 7th Central Pay Commission, special disability leave, hospital leave and sick leave were subsumed into a single work related illness and injury leave. The CCS (Leave) (Fourth Amendment) Rules 2018 substituted the new WRIIL into Rule 44 and omitted the old Rule 45 (special disability leave for accidental injury) and Rule 46 (hospital leave), so hospital leave is no longer a live head of leave.

When was work related illness and injury leave introduced?

It was introduced by the CCS (Leave) (Fourth Amendment) Rules 2018, notified as G.S.R. 1209(E) by the Department of Personnel and Training on 11 December 2018 and effective from 14 December 2018, implementing the 7th Central Pay Commission. A clarificatory Office Memorandum followed on 30 August 2019, but the substituting instrument is the December 2018 amendment, not the 2019 clarification.

Do the armed police forces get a different entitlement?

Yes. The during-hospitalisation entitlement is the same for all, full pay and allowances for the whole period, but the period after hospitalisation differs by category. A civilian gets 6 months at full pay and allowances and then 12 months at half pay. An officer of the Central Armed Police Forces gets 6 months at full pay and allowances and then 24 months at full pay without allowances. Personnel below officer rank of the CAPF get full pay and allowances with no limit on the period.

What condition must be met for WRIIL to be granted?

The illness or injury must be certified as attributable to, or aggravated in, the performance of official duties or in consequence of the employee’s official position. The claim is supported by the certificate of the competent medical authority under the medical-certificate provisions of the leave rules. WRIIL is not a general sick leave: an illness or injury unconnected with duty does not qualify, and the employee draws on earned leave, half pay leave or the other heads for that.

Is there a maximum period of WRIIL?

There is no single overall ceiling for a civilian: the entitlement is unlimited hospitalisation on full pay, then 6 months at full pay, then 12 months at half pay. Removing the earlier clubbing ceilings of special disability leave was a deliberate aim of the reform. The only fixed post-hospitalisation figure is the 24-month full-pay tail for a CAPF officer, and personnel below officer rank have no limit at all, so WRIIL should not be described as capped at any single number of months.

External references

References

Central Civil Services (Leave) (Fourth Amendment) Rules, 2018, G.S.R. 1209(E), Department of Personnel and Training, dated 11 December 2018, effective 14 December 2018 (substitution of Rule 44 with work related illness and injury leave; omission of Rules 45 and 46).
Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 11020/01/2017-Estt.(L) dated 30 August 2019 (clarification on work related illness and injury leave).
Report of the 7th Central Pay Commission, chapter on leave (recommendation to subsume special disability leave, hospital leave and sick leave into work related illness and injury leave).
Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 44 (work related illness and injury leave) and the medical-certificate provisions on leave on medical grounds.
Employees’ Compensation Act, 1923 (formerly the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923): set-off of compensation against the leave salary under Rule 44.