In a significant judgment, the CAT full bench presided over by Justice K M Agarwal along with B N Bahadur and S L Jain, ruled that the employee concerned is deemed to be continuing in service till midnight that day and accordingly, is entitled to all benefits.

V Rajagopalan and M A Paranjpe, who retired on superannuation from Department of Posts with effect from afternoon of March 31, 1995, had claimed in their petitions that the benefit of enhanced dearness allowance for the purpose of calculating gratuity, notified by the Government that day, be extended to them.The counsel for petitioners submitted that a CPWD engineer was served a chargesheet at 11:30 pm on the last date of his service and all his retirement benefits were withheld.