Telangana HC refuses NIMS bid to recall 1,569-day duty order: fraud was never raised in review
A division bench dismissed a writ appeal by Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences against the refusal to recall a 2023 order that counted a former Deputy Registrar’s compulsory retirement years as duty, saying the suppression ground was available earlier.
Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences wanted a 2023 order undone because the employee who won it had not told the court about an earlier writ petition. On 5 November 2026 the Telangana High Court refused. The order had counted 1,569 days between his compulsory retirement and reinstatement as duty for all purposes.
Justice P. Sam Koshy and Justice Narsing Rao Nandikonda dismissed Writ Appeal No. 572 of 2026. Justice Nandikonda delivered the judgment for the bench.
A charge about two added words
K. Vinodhar, then a Deputy Registrar at NIMS, received a charge memo on 16 November 2001. It said he had misled his superiors while preparing orders dated 31 March 2001. The orders raised a pay scale from Rs 2,200 to Rs 4,000 for a Legal Assistant.
The charge was that he had interpolated the words “Legal Assistant” after the posts of Assistant Registrar and Assistant Finance Controller. He was compulsorily retired from 12 June 2002.
On 31 August 2006 the institute proposed to treat the time he spent out of employment as a substantive punishment. He accepted this on 7 September 2006 and reported for duty on 27 September 2006. A later communication of 16 May 2008 treated the 1,569 days as dies non.
Years of representations and writs
Vinodhar said treating the period as dies non was itself a punishment, imposed without notice or a hearing. He added that the Executive Board had observed his compulsory retirement was ordered without following the prescribed procedure for a major penalty.
He sent a representation to the Minister for Health on 20 August 2015 and filed Writ Petition No. 42430 of 2016. That petition asked for a direction to consider his representation. It was dismissed as withdrawn on 27 November 2018.
On 22 October 2018 an order confirmed the earlier treatment of the period. He then filed Writ Petition No. 21197 of 2019, challenging that order and the dies non order of 16 May 2008 under Articles 14 and 16.
The 2023 order and the recall bid
On 10 November 2023 a single judge allowed the petition. The orders were set aside and the period from 12 June 2002 to 27 September 2006 was to be treated as duty for all purposes. NIMS was directed to pay increments, revised pay, pension and arrears within four months.
The Executive Board then filed IA No. 1 of 2026 to recall that order. The single judge dismissed it on 24 April 2026. NIMS appealed under Section 15 of the Letters Patent.
What NIMS argued
Mr Prabhakar Sripada, Senior Counsel, with Mr K. Prabhakar Reddy, Standing Counsel, appeared for NIMS. Their central ground was that Vinodhar played fraud by not disclosing the withdrawn Writ Petition No. 42430 of 2016 when he obtained the 2023 order.
They said the single judge missed that the Executive Board had considered his appeal and rejected it, as directed in an earlier writ, No. 464 of 2003. They also said he had gone to the local MLA, whose letter led the Special Chief Secretary to ask the NIMS Director for a report on 23 January 2017.
He had not challenged the substantive punishment of 12 June 2002 or the dies non order of 16 May 2008 in his earlier writs, they added, and could not do so after seventeen years.
The authorities on fraud and acceptance
The bench set out a series of Supreme Court rulings cited in support of the recall. On fraud, they included S.P. Chengalvaraya Naidu v. Jagannath and A.V. Papayyasastry v. Government of A.P., which deal with fraud on the court and say an order obtained by fraud is a nullity.
On acceptance, it set out cases applying the rule that a person cannot approbate and reprobate, including R.N. Gosain v. Yashpal Dhir. Other rulings in the list, from labour and service disputes, hold that an employee who takes the benefit of a reinstatement order cannot later challenge its terms.
Mr D. Goverdhana Chary, for Vinodhar, relied on Chief Commissioner, Land Administration, Government of Telangana v. P. Govind Reddy. It says fraud must be pleaded and established, and mere suspicion is not enough.
Why the bench refused to recall
The bench noted that the reinstatement order itself treated the intervening period as a substantive punishment. Having accepted it, the employee could not say he was forced to by financial constraints. It also recorded that he had gone to the appellate authority and to the High Court, and withdrew the earlier petition without liberty to file again.
The later filing of a similar case without disclosing that withdrawal was, it said, a relevant circumstance. Yet the ground now urged for recall was suppression and fraud on the court.
The bench then looked at what had happened after the 2023 order. A writ appeal against the single judge’s order was withdrawn with liberty to file a review. A review application was filed, but the fraud ground was not raised in it.
Review and recall, it said, rest on overlapping considerations, and a party cannot pursue successive proceedings on grounds already available. The alleged suppression could have been raised in the writ petition itself. The review order was not challenged and has attained finality.
In its words, the party “cannot now seek to reopen the matter by filing an application for recall” on grounds open to it earlier (para 22).
The judgment as published refers to the writ petition by both 2018 and 2019 numbers. It does not set out the reasons the single judge gave in 2023 or in April 2026.
Order
The bench said the single judge had passed the order after considering the material on record. It found no ground to interfere. The writ appeal was dismissed and the order of 24 April 2026 in IA No. 1 of 2026 was confirmed.
There was no order as to costs, and pending miscellaneous applications stand closed. Judgment had been reserved on 22 September 2026.