Urgent Mentioning Before the Tribunal: When and How It Is Done

What urgent mentioning actually means at a CAT bench

Every new Original Application goes through the registry first. It is checked for defects, given a number and then placed in the cause list on a date the registry fixes. In a busy bench that first date can be one to four weeks away, sometimes longer. Urgent mentioning is the way to skip that queue when waiting would make the case pointless.

In practice, your advocate stands up at the start of the bench's sitting, or at the time the bench sets aside for mentions, and briefly tells the members why the matter must be taken up today or tomorrow. Some benches want a written mentioning memo or an urgency form handed in to the court master or registry first. Others now accept e-mentioning through the tribunal's online facilities. The method differs from bench to bench, so the first job is to find out what your bench follows this month.

The bench may give a same day hearing, list the matter on the next working day, or fix a date within the week. It may also refuse and leave the matter to regular listing. A refusal is not a decision against you on merits. It only means the bench did not see a loss that could not wait.

One point people miss: mentioning gets you a hearing, not an order. Once listed, the interim prayer still has to pass the usual tests for a stay, which are explained in our guide on the three tests for a stay.

Which problems does the tribunal usually treat as urgent?

The common thread is a date. Something will happen on a fixed day, and after that day the relief you are asking for will either be useless or much harder to get. A transfer order with a relieving date of tomorrow is the classic case. Once you have been relieved and someone else has joined in your place, the tribunal is far less willing to disturb the posting, which is why we wrote separately on what happens if you are already relieved.

Retirement is the second big category. An employee retiring at the end of the month whose promotion is stuck in a sealed cover, or whose vigilance clearance has been withheld without any chargesheet, loses something real if the matter is heard after the retirement date. Pay can be refixed later, but the chance to actually hold the higher post and retire from it may not come back.

Candidates form the third group. A document verification, interview or medical examination fixed for a particular date, from which the candidate has been excluded, is a typical ground for urgent listing. So is a joining date in an offer letter that the department refuses to extend.

Other situations that benches have taken up quickly include orders asking a family to vacate government quarters within days, a probationer being discharged on short notice, and a recovery that would wipe out the whole of a retiree's gratuity at once. Whether any of these is accepted depends on the facts and how clearly you show the date of harm.

What does not count as urgency

Pay arrears, seniority disputes, APAR gradings, MACP refusals for past years and most pension revision claims are serious, but they can be put right by an order passed months later with arrears and interest. Benches rarely take these up out of turn, and mentioning them can use up goodwill you may need on another day.

Self-created urgency is the other trap. Suppose the transfer order came in July, the employee sat on it, and in October, two days before the relieving date, rushes to the tribunal. The bench is likely to ask why nothing was done for three months. If there is a good reason, such as a pending representation that was rejected only last week, say so in the first sentence of the memo with the date of the rejection letter.

An order that has not yet been issued is also not ready for mentioning. Rumours that a transfer list is coming, or an oral warning from a senior officer, give the tribunal nothing to stay. Wait for the written order, or at least a written show cause notice, and act on the same day it arrives.

The rules behind a quick hearing

How urgent mentioning is done, step by step

The order below is how a well-prepared urgent matter usually moves. Local practice changes the details, not the sequence.

1. Write down the date of harm

   Before anything is drafted, fix the exact date and time on which the damage will happen: the relieving date, the retirement date, the interview slot. Every later paper is built around that date, and the bench will ask for it first.

2. Send or hand in a representation

   If you have not already objected to the order in writing, do it now, addressed to the competent authority through proper channel, with a request to keep the order in abeyance. Keep the dated receipt or the email acknowledgement. This answers the Section 20 objection before it is raised.

3. Prepare the OA with an interim application

   The OA carries the full case; a separate application for interim relief asks for the narrow order you need now, such as staying the relieving order or keeping one post vacant. A short paragraph headed 'Urgency' near the top of the OA explains, in three or four lines, why the matter cannot wait.

4. Serve an advance copy on the department's counsel

   Give a complete set to the standing counsel who usually appears for the Union of India or your department at that bench, and keep proof of service: a signed receipt, a dated email or a courier slip. This is what lets the tribunal hear both sides at once instead of passing a short ex parte order that lapses in 14 days.

5. File, and mark the matter urgent

   File physically or through the CAT e-filing portal, with the urgency clearly marked as the bench requires. Check defects the same day; a missing page number or an unattested annexure can hold an urgent matter back. Our guide on curing filing defects lists the common ones.

6. Mention before the bench

   Your advocate mentions at the time the bench allows, orally or through the mentioning memo or e-mentioning system in use there. The submission takes a minute or two: what the order is, what happens on which date, and that the other side has a copy.

7. Appear when listed and argue the interim prayer

   If the bench lists the matter, be ready with the full set, the representation receipt and proof of advance service. The department's counsel may seek time; the bench may then pass a short interim order till the next date or simply direct that the order not be given effect meanwhile.

If the bench refuses to list the matter early, the OA stays on file and comes up on its normal date. Nothing stops you from mentioning again if a new fact arises, for example if the department actually issues the relieving order it had only proposed earlier.

Why the advance copy to the department matters so much

Section 24 is written in favour of hearing the other side. When the department's counsel already has the papers, the bench can hear both sides on the first day and pass an interim order that lasts until the next date, without the 14-day limit hanging over it. When counsel has not been served, the bench has to decide whether the case is strong enough for an exceptional order, and many benches simply issue notice and list the matter a few days later.

In practice the standing counsel at most benches is reachable through the bar room, by email or through a clerk. Some departments, such as the railways and the posts, have panel counsel for each bench. Serve whoever is shown as counsel for that department in recent cause lists, and if you cannot find out, serve the office of the central government's standing counsel at that bench and the department itself by email.

An advance copy also helps in a less obvious way. Counsel often calls the department the same evening for instructions, and sometimes the department itself defers the relieving or extends the date before the matter is even heard. That is not an outcome anyone can promise, but it happens more often than people expect.

The mentioning memo: one page, five facts

Where a bench asks for a written mentioning memo or an urgency slip, keep it short. The members read dozens of them. A memo that runs to three pages gets skimmed, and the key date can be missed.

The facts that should be on it are the case number or diary number, the names of the parties, the order under challenge with its date, the date on which harm will occur, and the one relief you want today. Add one line confirming that an advance copy has been served on the respondents' counsel, with the date and mode of service. If an earlier mention was refused, say so honestly; benches dislike learning it from the other side.

Avoid arguments in the memo. Grounds such as mala fides, violation of the transfer policy or breach of the sealed cover procedure belong in the OA. The memo exists only to answer why this case should jump the queue.

Papers to have in hand before anyone mentions your case

How long each stage takes and what it costs

Vacation bench: when the tribunal is closed

CAT benches take a summer break and some take a short winter or autumn break too, and the dates are not the same everywhere. Each bench notifies a calendar of sittings at the start of the year, and the vacation notice names the member who will sit as the vacation bench and the dates of those sittings. In 2026, for instance, the Srinagar Bench set its summer break for the last week of June and the first week of July with a single vacation sitting in between, while other benches broke in May or June.

During the break the registry usually accepts only urgent matters, often within limited hours. The vacation bench takes up matters where the harm will occur before the bench reopens. Routine filings are accepted for listing after the vacation.

If an order arrives just before a vacation, file before the bench closes if you possibly can. A matter mentioned on the last working day before the break is better placed than one that has to wait for the single vacation sitting. Read the vacation notice for your bench on the cgat.gov.in website and confirm the dates with the registry, because sittings are sometimes added or moved.

Which bench should hear your urgent matter?

Urgency does not change the territorial rules. A Group C employee posted in Guwahati files at the Guwahati Bench even if the transfer order was issued from a ministry in Delhi, because the posting place and the effect of the order are in Assam. Rule 6 of the CAT (Procedure) Rules also allows filing where the cause of action arose in part, which sometimes gives a choice. A retired employee files where he or she ordinarily resides.

Delhi has a particular situation. Employees posted in Delhi, ministry staff, GNCTD employees, Delhi Police personnel and since 2023 central employees in Uttarakhand generally file before the Principal Bench at Copernicus Marg. The Principal Bench has several division and single benches sitting at once, and the mention is made before the bench to which such matters are assigned on that day. Ask your advocate to check the roster the evening before.

If you are posted at a station far from the bench, you do not need to travel for the mention. Your advocate mentions, and most benches now allow you to watch or join through video link when the matter is heard. Our guide on joining a virtual hearing explains how that works.

A few groups are not before CAT at all. CAPF personnel of the BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP and SSB, and employees of most PSUs and public sector banks, take urgent service matters to the High Court. Army, Navy and Air Force members go to the Armed Forces Tribunal. Urgent mentioning in those forums follows their own practice.

Mentioning in a case that is already pending

Many urgent mentions are not in new cases at all. An OA against a show cause notice is pending, and then the department passes the final order. A transfer case is pending, and a relieving order suddenly arrives. In such cases the right paper is usually a miscellaneous application in the pending OA, asking for an early date and for interim protection against the new order, along with an amendment if the new order must itself be challenged.

The same rules about advance copies apply. Serve the department's counsel, who is already on record in the case, and attach the new order. Benches are often more willing to list such an application quickly because they already know the case. Our page on miscellaneous applications in a pending OA covers early hearing applications in more detail.

If an interim order is already in force and the department acts against it, the mention is about protecting that order. Bring the interim order, the department's later action and proof that the department knew of the order. Deliberate breach can lead to contempt proceedings under Section 17, but the first step is usually to ask the bench to direct the department to restore the position.

Two things Advocate B.K. Singh checks before a mention

The first is the gap between the order and the filing. Advocate B.K. Singh asks every client for the date the order was actually received, not the date printed on it, and the date of every step taken since. If there is a gap of more than a few days, he wants the reason written into the urgency paragraph in one sentence, because that is the first question benches ask. A pending representation, a leave period or a rejection received only yesterday are all honest reasons, but they must be on paper.

The second is proof of the date of harm. He prefers a document that shows the date on its face, such as a relieving order with a fixed date, a call letter or a retirement notice, over a client's statement that 'they will relieve me on Monday'. When the date rests only on what someone said, the bench is likely to wait for a written order, so he asks the client to obtain the written order first or to request it in writing from the office the same day.

How urgency looks different for different staff

Railway and postal staff. Transfers and reversions in these departments often come with relieving dates within days, and the divisional office may relieve in absentia. Get the representation in to the divisional or circle office the same day and file quickly. A Gramin Dak Sevak put off duty is not usually an urgent mentioning case by itself, since the ex gratia and later reinstatement can be dealt with in the ordinary course, but a sudden termination of engagement may be.

Defence civilians. Civilian staff in MES, ordnance establishments and depots come under CAT, not the AFT. Their movement orders sometimes give a single day's notice, so the papers must be ready faster than elsewhere.

Group A officers. Deputation repatriations, empanelment lists and premature retirement orders under FR 56(j) are the common urgent matters. FR 56(j) orders usually take effect immediately or on expiry of the notice period, so check whether you received three months' notice or pay in lieu.

Retirees and families. Most pension disputes are not urgent in the tribunal's sense. Exceptions include a retiree about to be evicted from quarters with penal rent, or a widow whose family pension has been stopped outright with no income left. Medical emergencies in the family are relevant facts and should be documented.

Candidates. Exam bodies fix dates months ahead, so a candidate should not wait for the day before the interview. File as soon as the rejection or exclusion is known. Remember that SSC GD and CAPF recruitment disputes usually go to the High Court, not CAT.

If the bench refuses to list it early

A refusal can feel like a loss, but it rarely ends anything. The OA remains on file and comes up on its ordinary date. In many cases the department's counsel, having received the papers, tells the department about the pending case, and departments do sometimes hold their hand once a matter is in court.

Do not go straight to the High Court because the tribunal refused to list a case early. Since L. Chandra Kumar, the High Court expects service matters of central employees to start in the tribunal, and a writ against a refusal to list is very unlikely to be entertained. A better use of the time is to strengthen the record, for example by getting the written order the bench wanted, or a reply to the representation.

If you have been relieved meanwhile, join at the new station or report as directed, under protest in writing. Refusing to join on the strength of a pending case, without any stay, exposes you to a charge of unauthorised absence. You can still pursue the challenge to the transfer itself.

Before you call your advocate today

• Photograph or scan the order with its date, and note the date and time you received it.
• Note the exact date of harm and the document that proves it.
• Send a representation the same day and keep the receipt.
• Collect the policy or OM you say has been broken.
• Find out whether your bench is sitting this week or is on vacation.
• Do not refuse to comply with a written order on the hope of a stay; ask for time in writing instead.

What to do next

Urgent mentioning works for cases with a real date of harm, a written order, a representation already sent and a complete set of papers with the department's counsel. It works poorly for old grievances and for orders that have already been carried out. If your matter fits the first description, every hour counts and the papers should be with your advocate today. Our page on interim stay orders under Section 24 explains what kind of order you can realistically ask for, and the OA filing page sets out how the main application is prepared.

For a transfer, the facts that decide urgency are usually the relieving date and whether someone has already joined in your place; our transfer order page covers the grounds that can be raised. For any other emergency, the same rule applies: get the written order, object in writing, then file and mention, in that order. Speak to a CAT lawyer about an urgent stay before the date passes, not after.

For advice on your own papers before you file, or for updates on how your bench is handling urgent matters, contact Advocate B.K. Singh.