In Brief
An Odisha police department orderly secured leave in 1991 to visit his ailing mother but never returned to duty for seven years, claiming mental illness. Despite repeated official directives to undergo medical examination, he refused. He was discharged in 1993. A psychiatric certificate produced in 1998 (from a doctor who never treated him) prompted the High Court to substitute discharge with compulsory retirement. The Supreme Court reversed this, holding that seven years of unauthorized absence with deliberate non-compliance, unsupported by contemporaneous medical records, justified the discharge. Proportionality principles applicable to short absences could not apply to prolonged misconduct.
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