Allahabad High Court: Rajesh Singh Chauhan, J. allowed a petition which was filed assailing order dated 16-04-2022 passed by the opposite party 1 transferring as many as 163 employees in different Zones serving at Central Bank of India from one place to another.
The petitioner is serving on the post of Officer (Scale-II) in Central Bank of India. Counsel for the petitioner drew attention of the Court towards Unique Disability ID issued by the Competent Authority of the Government of India relating to wife of the petitioner, who is permanent disable person having 100% disability. Further attention was drawn towards the policy/norms framed on Transfer of Mainstream/ Specialized Officer in Scale-I, II & III of the Bank. He drew attention of this Court towards para-3 (i) & (iii) of the aforesaid office memorandum of DOPT dated 08-10-2018, which read as under:-
“(i) A Government employee who is a care-giver of dependent daughter/ son/ parents/ spouse/ brother/ sister with Specified Disability, as certified by the certifying authority as a Person with Benchmark Disability as defined under Section 2 (r) of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 may be exempted from the routine exercise of transfer/rotational transfer subject to the administrative constraints.
(iii) The term ‘Specified Disability’ as defined herein is applicable as grounds only for the purpose of seeking exemption from routine transfers/ rotational transfer by the Government employee, who is a care-giver of dependent daughter/ son/ parents/ spouse/ brother/ sister as stated in para-3 (i) above.”
Counsel for the petitioner has submitted that so as to understand the meaning of ‘care-giver’, ‘benchmark disability’ and ‘permanent disability’, the relevant provision of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. It was therefore prayed that the transfer order, so far as it relates to the petitioner, may be stayed and the petitioner may be accommodated at anywhere at Lucknow Region if he may not be permitted to be posted at a place from where he has been transferred to Cooch Behar, Kolkata.
The Court was of the opinion that if there is any beneficial or compassionate policy to accommodate any employee for the specific and certain reason, the same must be abided by in its letter and spirit. The Court further explained that since the wife of the of the petitioner is a permanent disable person having 100% disability and to look-after and take care of her is a sole responsibility of the petitioner, then his status shall come within the meaning of term ‘care-giver’ as defines under Section 2 (d) of the Act, 2016. The rotational transfers are meant for a person who has not been protected by any compassionate or beneficial policy but if any employee has been protected from any beneficial or compassionate policy, the same may not be ignored unless there is any administrative reason to transfer such person from one zone to another zone.
The Court allowed the petition and held that the transfer is an exigency/ incidence of service and no courts are ordinarily interfered with the transfer orders but if such transfer may be avoided for any specific compelling reason and that reason is unavoidable, the Competent Authority being model employer should consider such condition sympathetically.
[Neeraj Chaturvedi v. Central Bank Of India, 2022 SCC OnLine All 399, decided on 09-06-2022]
Counsel for Petitioner :- Shireesh Kumar
Counsel for Respondent :- Gopal Kumar Srivastava