Casual Leave

Casual leave is not a recognized form of leave and is not subject to any rules made by the Government of India. A Government servant on casual leave is not treated as absent from duty and his pay is not intermitted. For administrative reason and in order to ensure, as far as possible, uniformity of treatment in this respect, the following instructions have been laid down by the Director-General of Posts to regulate the grant of casual leave to the officers and staff of the Department of Posts which must be strictly observed:-


Rules Regarding Casual Leave
(a) Casual leave is limited to a maximum of 8 days in a calendar year in respect of all the staff except the Postal Dispensary Staff for whom it is 10 days as prescribed by the Department of Personnel and Training.
(b) The number of days specified is a maximum only and no one can claim the maximum number of days of casual leave as a matter of right.
(c) Casual Leave is intended essentially for short periods of absence due to unexpected contingencies. Such leave should ordinarily be granted for short periods of 1, 2 or 3 days but not exceeding 5 days at any one time. The head of the office may however waive this condition in any individual case if he considers that there are exceptional circumstances justifying a relaxation in this regard. The practice of prefixing or suffixing casual leave to gazetted holidays or Sundays should be discouraged. Sundays, Public Holidays and weekly offs falling within the period of casual leave, or preceding or following it, should not be counted as part of the casual leave.

(d) Except in the cases specified in Rule 100 below, the grant of casual leave is, in each case, subject to the clear condition that no extra expenditure should be incurred in consequence of the absence of an official on casual leave. Casual leave can be granted only when this can be done without inconvenience to public, administration and the work of the absentee can be distributed and performed by the remaining staff or can be held up without inconvenience pending his return to duty.
(e) The authority competent to grant casual leave is the head of the office, and where the applicant is himself the head of the office, the authority immediately superior to him. The Head of the office under the control of a Gazetted officer may delegate the power to grant casual leave to any authority subordinate to the latter. The decision of this authority to grant or not to grant casual leave is final in all cases.
Note 1.-- A branch postmaster or Gramin Dak Sewak Sub Postmaster is not Head of an office for the purposes of this instruction.
Note 2.-- In the case of postmen, village postmen, mail-guards and Class IV servants, the power to grant casual leave will be exercised by the Head of offices subject to the condition that if a substitute is required in place of an absentee, the authority competent to arrange for the substitute will be the authority competent to sanction the casual leave.
Note 3.-- In regard to persons who join Government service in the middle of a calendar year, the authority competent to grant such leave will have the discretion to grant either the full period of 8 or 10 days as the case may be or only a proportion thereof, after taking into account the circumstances of the case.
Note 4.-- If an official is transferred during the middle of the year from an office or post where the limit of 10 days casual leave applies to an office or post where the limit of 8 days casual leave applies or vice versa the amount of casual leave admissible may be determined by the head of the office after taking into account all circumstances of the case