In short. Serving the tribunal order on the department is the step that starts the department's clock: most CAT orders give three or four months to comply from the date a certified copy reaches the respondents. If your OA has been allowed or remitted, this guide is for you. Get the certified copy within days of the order, send it with a short covering letter to every respondent and to the office that will actually pay or pass the fresh order, keep proof of delivery, and diarise the date compliance falls due.
Is this your situation?
- The Tribunal has allowed your OA, fully or in part, and you have the order in hand or on the website
- The order tells the department to do something within a fixed time, counted from receipt of a copy
- You are not sure whether the department's lawyer has already sent the order to your office
- You do not know whom to address: the Secretary, the head of your office or the accounts branch
- Weeks have passed and nobody in the office will tell you whether the order is being implemented
- You are a pensioner and the revised payment has to come through a PAO, CPAO or bank
- The department has hinted it may go to the High Court and you are unsure whether to wait
In short
- The clock usually starts from receipt. Most orders give the department a fixed period from the date it receives a certified copy, so the date of your service on it matters.
- Apply for the certified copy at once. A copy downloaded from the CAT website is useful for reading but many offices will wait for the certified one.
- Serve more than one desk. Send the order to every respondent named in the OA and to the office that has to pass the fresh order or release the money.
- Keep proof that will survive an argument. Speed post receipts, tracking printouts, receiving stamps and diary numbers decide later disputes about dates.
- Follow up in writing, then stop writing. One reminder after the deadline is sensible; after that, the remedy is an application to the same bench, not a stream of letters.
Why the date of service decides when the department must act
Read the last paragraph of your order before you do anything else. In most service cases the Tribunal writes something close to this: the respondents shall comply within three months from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this order. The time does not run from the day the judgment was pronounced. It runs from the day a certified copy reached the department, and the department will count from the latest date it can show.
That is why serving the tribunal order on the department is not a formality. If you leave it to the department's counsel to pass the order on, you cannot prove when it reached your ministry, your directorate or your divisional office. An officer who wants more time can always say the copy came late. If you serve it yourself, by a method that leaves a record, the compliance date becomes a fact you can put before the bench.
Some orders are worded differently. A few say the time runs from the date of the order, and urgent orders sometimes say the department must act within a few weeks of receipt of a copy 'downloaded from the website'. Our guide on reading your tribunal order and its directions explains the common forms. Whatever the wording, write the trigger and the period on the front of your file today.
Certified copy service: which copy you should send
The CAT registry issues a certified copy on an application in the prescribed form with the copying charges, which are small. Parties often also receive a free copy, and the order is uploaded on the CAT website within days in most benches. A downloaded copy carries the bench's details and is good enough for you to read and plan. For service on the department, a certified copy is safer, because that is what the operative paragraph usually names.
Apply on the day the order is pronounced or uploaded. In busy benches a certified copy can take from a few days to two or three weeks, depending on the length of the order and the copying section's backlog. If your lawyer files the copy application, ask for the date it was filed and the date it is ready, and collect it yourself if you live near the bench. Keep one certified copy untouched in your file; send photocopies of it, attested by you, only where a second copy is needed.
Where an order is urgent, such as one restraining a transfer or a recovery, the Tribunal sometimes allows the applicant to serve a downloaded copy or a copy signed by the court master. If your order says so, use that permission at once and mention the exact words in your covering letter so the office cannot insist on waiting.
Serving the tribunal order on the department, step by step
Most people can finish the first five steps within a week of getting the certified copy.
Read the operative part and list who must act
Note each direction separately: re-fix pay, release arrears, decide the representation, pay interest, issue a revised PPO. Next to each, write which authority will actually do it. That list decides your addressees.
Collect the certified copy
Apply on the day of the order and keep the receipt. When the copy is ready, check that every page is present and that the certification stamp and date are clear on the first or last page.
Prepare one covering letter per addressee
Each letter should name the OA number, the bench, the date of the order and the direction that concerns that office. Keep it to one page. Sign it, date it, and give your phone number and email.
Send by two routes
Use speed post or registered post with acknowledgment due, and also hand it over at the receipt and dispatch section where you can. A hand delivery should come back with a stamp and a diary or inward number on your copy.
Email a scanned set where the office uses email
Many ministries and divisional offices accept letters by official email. Email does not replace the posted copy, but it removes the excuse that the letter was lost in the dak.
Calculate and diarise the due date
Count the period from the date of delivery shown in the tracking record or the receiving stamp. Put the due date and a reminder two weeks before it in your phone and on the file cover.
Inform your counsel of the service
Send your lawyer a set of everything you served, with proof. If the case goes back to the bench, the service record will be annexed to the application.
If you appeared in person, the same steps apply. The bench expects an applicant to show when and how the department got the order, whoever drafted the OA.
What the covering letter for the order should contain
- A subject line with the case details. OA number and year, bench, your name and the date of the order, so the receipt clerk can route it to the legal cell without opening the enclosure.
- The direction in the Tribunal's own words. Quote the operative paragraph rather than summarising it. Officers act on the text, and your own paraphrase invites an argument about what was meant.
- The date by which compliance falls due. State the period and, if you are writing after delivery, the date it ends. If you are writing before delivery, say the period runs from receipt of the letter.
- What you need from that office. For a pay office, the re-fixation and arrears; for a disciplinary authority, a fresh decision; for a pension sanctioning authority, the revised pension papers sent to the PAO.
- Your current details. Present posting or home address, PPO number if retired, bank account if money is to be paid, and a phone number that is answered.
- A short list of enclosures. Certified copy, or attested copy of it, and any earlier order the Tribunal referred to. Do not attach your whole paper book.
- A polite and plain tone. No threats of contempt in the first letter. The record you are building should show a reasonable applicant and an office that had every chance.
A short covering letter you can adapt
Here is the body of a first letter in words most offices will understand. Change the details to fit your order. 'Sir/Madam, I enclose a certified copy of the order dated 14 August 2026 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Allahabad Bench in OA No. 330/00XXX/2025, in which I was the applicant and your office was respondent No. 3. In paragraph 9 the Tribunal has directed the respondents to re-fix my pay with effect from 1 January 2016 and pay the resulting arrears within three months from the date of receipt of a certified copy of the order. I request you to take action on the direction and to let me know the name and number of the officer dealing with it. My PPO number, bank account and address are given below.'
That is all a first letter needs. It names the case, quotes the order, states the period, asks for a contact and gives the details required to pay. Notice what it does not do. It does not argue the merits again, which were settled by the Tribunal. It does not demand interest that the order did not grant. It does not mention contempt.
If the order directs a fresh decision on a representation, add one more line asking for a personal hearing before the decision. Many remand orders do not require one, but a request on record helps when the fresh decision is examined later. Our page on making a remitted fresh decision count deals with what to send in that period.
Who should receive the order: respondents and the paying office
Every respondent in the cause title should get a copy, because the direction is addressed to all of them. Usually that means the Union of India through the Secretary of the ministry, the head of the department or directorate, and the local authority who passed the order you challenged. In railway cases it may be the General Manager, the Divisional Railway Manager and the Senior Divisional Personnel Officer. In postal cases, the Chief Postmaster General of the circle, the Superintendent or Senior Superintendent of the division, and sometimes the Director of Accounts (Postal).
Then think about who will physically carry out the direction. A pay re-fixation for a serving employee is done by the establishment section and checked by the pay and accounts office. A pension revision for a retiree needs the head of office to send revised papers, the PAO to authorise, and the bank's central pension processing centre to pay. If the PAO was not a respondent, send it a copy for information anyway. Many delays happen because the order sits correctly in the ministry while the office that writes the cheque has never seen it.
For serving defence civilians the paying office is usually a Controller of Defence Accounts, and defence civilian pensions are now paid through SPARSH, the defence pension system. Serve the controller's office and the head of your last unit. For a central autonomous body notified under Section 14(2), such as an ESIC hospital or a research institute, the administrative head and the finance officer are the two offices to reach.
Compliance time: how different orders count the period
| What the order says | When the period starts | What you should do |
|---|---|---|
| Comply within three months from receipt of a certified copy | Date the certified copy reaches the respondent | Serve the certified copy yourself and keep the delivery proof |
| Decide the representation within eight weeks from receipt of this order | Date any copy of the order reaches the authority | Serve promptly; a downloaded copy may be enough, but send the certified copy when ready |
| Comply within four months from the date of this order | Date the order was pronounced | Serve anyway, so the office cannot claim it was unaware |
| Pass a reasoned order after giving the applicant a hearing | Usually from receipt, as stated in the order | Ask in writing for the hearing date and attend with a short note |
| Release the amount with interest at a stated rate | Same as the main period; interest runs to the date of actual payment | Ask for a calculation sheet showing the interest separately |
| No time limit stated | A reasonable time, judged by the bench | Wait about three months, then write; an application for directions can fix a date |
Advocate B.K. Singh's first tip: get one name and one number
Advocate B.K. Singh's advice after any favourable order is to find the one dealing hand or section officer who holds the file and to get that person's name, designation and office phone number in writing. A letter addressed to 'the Secretary' disappears into a system of receipts and movements. A follow-up call to a named dealing assistant, made politely after the order has been served, tells you whether the file has gone for legal opinion, to finance, or nowhere at all.
He also asks clients to note every such call in a single page diary: date, person, what was said. That page has a use beyond memory. If the matter goes back to the bench, a dated record of patient requests shows that the delay was not of your making. Keep the tone of every call courteous. The dealing hand is rarely the person resisting compliance, and is often the one who can move the file to the officer who must sign.
What happens inside the department after the order arrives
Understanding the internal path explains most of the silence you will face. The order first goes to the legal cell or the administrative section that handled the case. That section asks the government counsel who appeared before the Tribunal for an opinion on whether the order should be implemented or challenged. In many ministries the case is also tracked on the Law Ministry's online litigation monitoring system, where the result and the next step are recorded.
If the opinion is to implement, the file moves for a proposal: a pay re-fixation statement, a revised pension calculation, or a draft fresh order. Where money is involved, the finance wing or the internal finance adviser has to agree. For pension cases the PAO checks the calculation. Each movement can take two to four weeks, and a three-month period is often barely enough even in an office that intends to comply.
If the opinion is to challenge the order, the department has to approach the High Court by a writ petition, or file a review before the Tribunal within 30 days. While that decision is being made, nothing moves on your claim. You will usually hear nothing until a writ notice arrives or the deadline passes. Our guide on defending a department's writ after your win covers that turn of events.
Time and cost from the order to actual implementation
| Stage | Usual time range | Cost in general terms |
|---|---|---|
| Certified copy of the order from the registry | A few days to about three weeks | Copying charges per page, modest |
| Serving the order with covering letters | One to five days after the copy is ready | Postage and photocopies only |
| Department's internal decision to implement or challenge | Four to ten weeks | Nil to you |
| Actual compliance where the department accepts the order | Within the period fixed, sometimes after one extension | Nil; arrears and any interest are paid to you |
| Application for directions or contempt petition after default | Notice in a few weeks; compliance often within two to six months of filing | A small fixed tribunal fee (check the current figure with the registry) plus professional fees agreed in writing |
| Department's writ in the High Court | Months to a few years | Defending costs; the High Court may stay or refuse to stay the order |
Excuses you are likely to hear, and a fair reply to each
- 'The certified copy has not been received.' Send the tracking printout and the diary number with a fresh attested copy. Note the date of your second letter, because the department may now count from it.
- 'The matter is under examination for filing a writ.' Examination does not stop the clock. Only a stay granted by the High Court, or an extension granted by the Tribunal, does that.
- 'Finance has raised a query.' Ask in writing what the query is. Often it is a missing document you can supply in a day, such as a pay slip or a bank mandate.
- 'The order covers only you, so others cannot be given the same.' That is often correct. Colleagues in the same position usually need their own representations, and sometimes their own OAs.
- 'We need your fresh representation first.' If the order already decided the point, you do not need to argue it again. If the order was a remand, send a short representation at once so the office has no reason to wait.
- 'The officer concerned has been transferred.' The direction binds the post, not the person. The successor is bound to act within the same period.
A made-up example: a Senior Auditor in Nagpur waiting for her MACP re-fixation
Here's a made-up example. Kavita Deshmukh, 52, is a Senior Auditor in an audit office in Nagpur. The Mumbai Bench of the Tribunal allows her OA on 12 February and directs the respondents to grant the second MACP from the date it fell due and to pay arrears within three months from receipt of a certified copy. Her counsel applies for the copy the same week. It is ready on 3 March.
On 6 March Kavita hands one set to the receipt section of her own office, gets a stamp and inward number, and sends speed post sets to the ministry and the headquarters office named as respondents. She emails a scan to the administration branch. Tracking shows delivery at headquarters on 10 March. She writes 10 June as the due date and 27 May as her reminder.
By 27 May the administration branch tells her the file went to headquarters for legal opinion in April. She sends a one-page reminder recording that the deadline falls on 10 June. On 2 June the department files a miscellaneous application asking for eight more weeks because the re-fixation needs the accounts office's checking. The Tribunal grants six weeks. The re-fixation order and arrears statement come in mid July.
Kavita checks the statement line by line and finds the arrears correct but the revised pay in the current year missing one increment. She writes to the accounts office with the pay slip and the order. If that error is not corrected, it can be raised before the same bench in an application for directions. Her case moves because the dates were proved, not because she wrote often.
Follow-up implementation: reminders that build a record
Send one reminder about two weeks before the period ends, and a second short letter on the day after it expires. The first asks politely whether anything further is needed from you. The second records, in two lines, that the period fixed by the Tribunal has ended and that you have not received the order or the payment. Both go by speed post, with copies by email where the office uses it.
Do not send letter after letter for months. Repeated reminders do not extend any limitation and can make it look as though you accepted the delay. A contempt petition has to be filed within one year of the default under Section 20 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, and the year is counted from the end of the compliance period, not from your last reminder.
An RTI application can help where an office will say nothing. Ask for the file notings on the implementation of the Tribunal's order in your OA from the date of receipt, and for the name of the officer to whom the file is marked. File notings on your own case are generally given, though parts may be withheld. The reply often tells you whether a writ is being prepared.
Advocate B.K. Singh's second tip: check the payment as carefully as the order
When compliance arrives, it often arrives incomplete. Advocate B.K. Singh tells clients to treat the compliance order as a fresh document to be checked against the Tribunal's direction, line by line, before sending any thanks. Has pay been re-fixed from the date the Tribunal named, or from a later date the office found convenient? Have the arrears included DA on the revised pay? Has interest been calculated, if the order granted it? Has the effect on pension been worked out for a retiree?
Write back within a few weeks if something is short, quoting the paragraph of the Tribunal's order that the compliance falls short of. A partial compliance accepted without objection for a year becomes hard to reopen. If you are unsure how to check a pay statement, our guide on checking a pay fixation statement takes you through each line.
If the department seeks more time or goes to the High Court
A department that needs more time has to ask the Tribunal for it by a miscellaneous application, and it usually does so close to the deadline. You or your counsel will receive notice. Courts often grant one reasonable extension where the department shows that it has started work. If you are served with such an application, say plainly when the order was served, and ask that any extension be the last one.
If the department files a writ petition in the High Court, the Tribunal's order remains in force unless the High Court stays it. Many High Courts decline to stay money orders outright and instead direct that the amount be deposited or paid subject to the result. Until you see a stay order in writing, the department's duty to comply continues.
A review application before the Tribunal is another possibility, limited to 30 days and to errors apparent on the record. It does not suspend the order either. Our service page on review applications under Section 22 explains what a review can and cannot do.
When follow-up turns into execution or contempt
Once the period has ended and your reminder has gone unanswered, the next step is before the same bench. There are two tools. An application for directions, often filed as a miscellaneous application relying on the Tribunal's power to give effect to its own orders under Rule 24 of the CAT (Procedure) Rules, 1987, asks the bench to fix a final date or direct a particular act. A contempt petition under Section 17 of the Administrative Tribunals Act asks the bench to act against officers who have wilfully disobeyed its order.
Section 27 of the Act says a final order of the Tribunal is to be carried out in the same way as a final order of the government itself, so non-compliance without a stay is difficult for an office to justify. Contempt notices usually move files faster than letters, but contempt is a serious step and the bench expects a clear order, clear service and a clear default. Our page on execution and contempt when the department has not complied sets out how each works.
If the department has passed a fresh order rejecting your claim after reconsidering it, the position is different. A reasoned rejection after a 'consider and decide' direction is usually challenged by a fresh OA, not by contempt. The guide on choosing between contempt and a fresh OA helps with that choice.
Papers to keep together from the day of the order
The order and its copies
- Certified copy of the order, kept unmarked
- Receipt of your copy application showing the date
- Downloaded copy from the CAT website for working notes
- Any earlier interim order the final order refers to
Proof of service
- Office copies of each covering letter, signed and dated
- Speed post receipts and tracking printouts showing delivery
- Receiving stamps or inward diary numbers on hand-delivered sets
- Emails sent, with the reply or delivery report
Follow-up and compliance
- Your call diary with names and dates
- Reminder letters and any replies
- RTI application and reply on the implementation file
- Compliance order, pay or pension statement, and bank credit entries
Which bench hears the follow-up if compliance fails
The application for directions or contempt goes to the bench that passed the order, even if you have since been transferred or retired to another state. A retired railway clerk who won at the Jabalpur Bench and now lives in Varanasi still goes back to Jabalpur, though online filing and virtual hearings mean he need not travel for every date. If the original case was transferred under Section 25 to another bench, the follow-up goes to the bench that decided it.
Where the department has filed a writ, that is heard by the High Court with territorial jurisdiction over the bench that passed the order, following L. Chandra Kumar. For an order of the Principal Bench in New Delhi, that is the Delhi High Court. If the Tribunal's order is confirmed or the writ is dismissed, compliance is again pursued before the Tribunal, with the High Court's order added to your service set.
Retirees, railway and postal staff, defence civilians and candidates
Retirees face the longest chain, because a pension order passes through the head of office, the PAO or CPAO and the bank. Serve all three. Ask the PAO for the revised pension payment order number once it is issued and give it to your bank branch yourself. If the revision changes gratuity or commutation, check that a separate sanction has been issued for those amounts. Our page on pension, PPO and gratuity disputes lists the offices involved.
Railway staff should serve the personnel branch of the division and the accounts branch that maintains their pay, along with the headquarters respondents. Postal staff and Gramin Dak Sevaks should serve the divisional head and the postal accounts office. Defence civilians should serve the unit or establishment head and the Controller of Defence Accounts. Group A officers often find the order handled in the ministry's cadre division; ask there for the dealing section.
Candidates who won a recruitment case need the recruiting body and the user department both to act: the commission or board to issue a revised result or recommendation, and the department to issue the appointment letter. Serve both, and ask the department for the date of medical examination and verification so that the appointment is not held up for paperwork.
What to do this week
Apply for the certified copy if you have not done so. Write down each direction in the order and the office that must carry it out. Prepare one-page covering letters and send them by speed post, with hand delivery where you can, and keep every proof. Count the compliance date from delivery and put it in your diary with a reminder two weeks earlier. If you would like a cost picture before the next stage, see costs in tribunal cases.
If the deadline has already passed, collect your proof of service and your reminders and get advice on the next application before the one-year contempt period runs. To have your order and service record checked, or for updates on how the benches are handling compliance, contact Advocate B.K. Singh.
Frequently asked questions
Who is supposed to send the CAT order to my department, me or the government counsel?
Government counsel usually informs the department, but the order's time limit often runs from receipt of a certified copy, and you cannot prove when counsel's letter reached anyone. Serve it yourself with proof of delivery. It costs little and fixes the date.
Is a copy downloaded from the CAT website enough to serve?
It is enough for reading and planning, and some orders expressly allow it. Where the order speaks of a certified copy, send the certified copy or an attested copy of it, so the office cannot say it is waiting for one.
How long does the department get to implement an order?
Whatever the order states, most often three or four months, sometimes eight weeks for a fresh decision. If no time is fixed, a reasonable period applies, and the bench can later fix a date on an application.
The department says it is filing a writ. Should I stop following up?
No. A writ filed or proposed does not suspend the order. Only a stay from the High Court, or an extension from the Tribunal, changes the deadline, so keep your reminders and your diary running.
Can I send the order by email instead of post?
Email helps and many offices accept it, but use it alongside speed post or hand delivery with a receiving stamp. Delivery proof from the post office is accepted easily by the bench.
What if I served the order on the wrong office?
Serve the correct offices now with a short letter explaining that the order was earlier sent elsewhere. The department may count time from the new delivery, so act quickly rather than argue about the old one.
My arrears were paid but without interest. Can I ask for it?
Only if the order granted interest, or if payment was so late that a fresh claim for interest on delay is justified. Write to the paying office first, quoting the order, and take advice if it refuses.
How long do I have to file contempt if nothing happens?
One year from the date the compliance period ended, under Section 20 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. Reminders do not extend it, so do not wait for a reply to a fourth letter.
Advocate B.K. Singh
Founder of B.K. Singh & Associates. MCA, LL.B., LL.M. More than twenty years in practice before the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court and other High Courts, the Central Administrative Tribunal and other tribunals. This guide was written and reviewed by his team.
This guide explains the law in general terms and is not legal advice. For advice on your own papers, contact the team.
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