New Delhi : The Delhi High Court has held that an employee is not entitled to arrears if he or she is promoted with retrospective effect. Justice SN Aggarwal passed the order on a petition filed by an employee of India Tourism Development Corporation, seeking court's direction to the government to grant her arrears for the period during which she was denied promotion and was later given promotion with retrospective effect.

"I hold that she is not entitled to any arrears of salary for the period of her notional promotion preceding the date of her actual promotion," the court said.

The court referred previous Supreme Court verdict formulating the doctrine of "no work no pay".

"It has been held that the salary and allowances of a promotional post cannot be granted to an incumbent as no work was done by employee in the promotional post till the time the incumbent was actually promoted," the court referring to apex court judgement.

The petitioner, Shashi Kiran Suri, had pleaded that as she was denied the promotion because of the mistake of the administration, the authorities are bound to pay the arrears of salary along with the benefit with retrospective effect to undo their mistake.

The Corporation, however, contended that the promotion was not granted to her because of pendency of chargesheet against her at the relevant time. Therefore, denial of the promotion to the petitioner was bona fide and no fault can be attributed to the management in this regard, it pleaded.