Jaibir Singh v. Director General CISF

1. Mr. Keshav Sehgal submits, at the outset, that his presence has not been recorded for the respondent on the last date of hearing. It is clarified that Mr. Keshav Sehgal was present.

2. The petitioner was appointed as a Force member in the CISF in

1987. He has provided, in the writ petition, the details of the postings that he has suffered over time from 23 June 1987 till 1 April 2017 thus: From Date Unit Name Posting Category Sector Name 23-06-1987 RTC BARWAHA Basic Training Period TRG HQrs NISA 30-03-1988 PPT PARADEEP Normal East 21-07-1993 DSP DURGAPUR Normal North East 01-07-1996 2ND RB DELHI Normal North 01-07-1997 FHQ CISF state where served not updated Normal Deputation 01-03-1999 DELHI POLICE state where served not updated Normal Deputation 14-01-2003 SDSC SRIHARIKOTA Normal South 01-05-2006 VSSC THUMBA Normal South 10-05-2009 CHANDIGARH AIRPORT Normal Airport-I New Delhi 07-05-2013 CGBS NEW DELHI Normal Airport-I New Delhi 01-04-2017 IGI AIR PORT Normal Airport-I New Delhi

3. The petitioner is aggrieved by order dated 17 May 2023, whereby the petitioner has been transferred to the North Zone Airport Unit, Dehradun, from New Delhi.

4. Mr. Sureshan, learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner, initially, reiterated the stand taken in the petition, to the effect that the transfer was in violation of circular dated 25 September 2017, which contains the guidelines of postings/transfer of CISF personnel in various sectors of the CISF. The stand taken in the writ petition is that the writ petition relies on para 12 of the aforenoted circular, which normally advises against transferring of a person outside the home sector in the last tenure of the person’s posting.

5. Mr. Sureshan submits that the petitioner was, till the issuance of the impugned order, posted at CISF Unit IGI Airport and that, by transferring the petitioner to Dehradun, the aforenoted guidelines have been violated.

6. Prima facie, this contention cannot be accepted in view of paras 13 and 14 of the guidelines which read thus:

13. For the purpose of this policy there shall be following Sectors. i) North Sector- Comprising of J&K, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Uttarakhand & UP excluding the districts under Eastern UP as mentioned under Eastern Sector. ii) NCR Sector - Comprising of units under NCR Zone, SSG, GBS, DMRC& other Units as notified under NCR Sector from time to time. iii) Eastern Sector - Comprising of Bihar, Jharkhand and Eastern UP (districts of Varanasi, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Sonbhadra, Deoria, Gorakhpur, Kushi Nagar, Maharaj Ganj, Ambedkar Nagar, Faizabad, Sultanpur, Amethi,Barabanki, Bahraich, Balrampur, Gonda, Shravasti, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Siddharth Nagar, Azamgarh, Balia, Mau, Allahabad, Fatehpur, Kaushambi, Pratapgarh). iv) South Eastern Sector- Comprising of West Bengal, Orissa, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Sikkim. v) North Eastern Sector - Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Tripura. vi) Central Sector - Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. vii) Western Sector - Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Daman & Diu and Dadra Nagar Haveli. viii) Southern Sector - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Lakshadweep. However, the area under Sectors can be changed by the DG/CISF at any time depending upon administrative requirement and operational exigencies.

14. For the purpose of this policy "Home Sector" means the sector under which the Home address of personnel declared at the time of appointment, falls. All other sectors shall be treated as OHS. However the proposed NCR & North Sector shall be treated one sector for the purpose of this policy. The personnel posted in North and NCR sectors are liable to be transferred and rotated between North Sector and NCR Sector any time, which shall not be treated as Inter Sector Transfer (1ST).” (Emphasis supplied)

7. A conjoint reading of paras 13 and 14 of the aforenoted circular no. 22 of 2017 reveal that, though the NCR Zone, where the petitioner is presently posted, falls under the “NCR Sector”, and Uttarakhand, to where the petitioner has been transferred, falls under the “North Sector”, both sectors are treated as one sector for the purposes of implementation of the aforenoted guidelines, by para 14 thereof.

8. As such, the submission that the petitioner is being subjected to inter sector transfer during the last tenure of his posting cannot be accepted.

9. Faced with this situation, Mr. Sureshan falls back on an alternative contention premised on the principle of legitimate expectation. He submits that the petitioner had the legitimate expectation that, during the last tenure of his posting, he would not be posted outside at a place distant from where he is presently posted. He submits that, inter alia, one of the reasons why the petitioner desires to continue to stay at Delhi is that, after he retires, he has to proceed with the department for obtaining his retiral benefits and that, as retiral benefits would be disbursed at the station where the officer is last posted, it would be difficult for the petitioner, after retirement, to travel from Delhi to Dehradun for his terminal emoluments.

10. Mr. Keshav Sehgal, learned Counsel for the respondent, assuages this apprehension by stating, on instructions, that the pay and accounts office, both for postings at Delhi and Dehradun, is located at Delhi. As such, he submits that the petitioner would not face any hardship even if he is transferred to the Dehradun for the present as, after retirement, he would return to Delhi and obtain his retiral benefits from Delhi itself.

11. It is well settled that orders of transfer are ordinarily not to be interfered with. A Coordinate Division Bench of this Court, presided by Hon’ble the Chief Justice has, recently, in Alok Kumar Verma v. UOI[1] examined the legal position in this regard and come to the conclusion that, as the law stands today, transfer is an inevitable incidence of service and that, save and except cases where the transfer is vitiated by mala fides, no injunctive orders restraining transfers should be passed by Courts. The relevance passages from the said decision may be reproduced thus:

“………In Public Services Tribunal Bar Association v. State of U.P.2, Hon'ble Supreme Court ruled that transfer is an incident of service and is made in administrative exigencies. Normally, it is not to be interfered with by the Court, except in rare cases where the transfer has been made in a vindictive manner. Para 38 of the judgment read as under:—