  It is known from grand canonical simulations of a system of hard rods on two
dimensional lattices that an orientationally ordered nematic phase exists only
when the length of the rods is at least seven. However, a recent microcanonical
simulation with diffusion kinetics, conserving both total density and zero
nematic order, reported the existence of a nematically phase segregated steady
state with interfaces in the diagonal direction for rods of length six [Phys.
Rev. E 95, 052130 (2017)], violating the equivalence of different ensembles for
systems in equilibrium. We resolve this inconsistency by demonstrating that the
kinetics violate detailed balance condition and drives the system to a
nonequilibrium steady state. By implementing diffusion kinetics that drives the
system to equilibrium, even within this constrained ensemble, we recover
earlier results showing phase segregation only for rods of length greater than
or equal to seven. Furthermore, in contrast to the nonequilibrium steady state,
the interface has no preferred orientational direction. In addition, by
implementing different nonequilibrium kinetics, we show that the interface
between the phase segregated states can lie in different directions depending
on the choice of kinetics.
