Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 2: Division Bench of the State High Court comprising Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar and Justice B S Walia today held that the State reserves the right to repatriate employees to their parent departments during any course of time.
This judgment was delivered in a case filed by Pawan Nehru and others in which Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi with Advocate Veenu Gupta appeared on the behalf of the appellant whereas Additional Advocate General Ahsan Mirza appeared for the State.
It is pertinent to mention here that the appellants were in the Revenue Department and were deputed in the Relief and Rehabilitation Department as zonal officers/camp commandants in the beginning of this year for effectively carrying out the relief and rehabilitation for Kashmiri migrants.
Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi in support of the appeal submitted that vide its Order No. Rev/MR/150/2014 dated 24th June, 2014 the Government has framed transfer policy for the employees posted in the Relief Organization and the transfer of the employees is the violation of the order itself wherein it is clearly mentioned that an employee irrespective of status shall be repatriated to his parent department who has stayed in the Relief Organization for more than ten years.
He further submitted that according to Government’s own ruling no official shall be allowed to continuously work in the Relief Organization beyond five years and the employees who have already completed this period may be dealt with transfer policy whereas in the present case it is clear cut breach of trust with the employees and their transfer is purely pre-mature.
AAG Ahsan Mirza apprised the court that since the establishment of the Relief Organization it remained a precedent to take the working hands from other departments on deputation basis and in this case too, the employees were on deputation basis and not on the existing posts.
He further submitted that although both the terms ‘transfer’ and ‘deputation’ are synonymous but when an employee is sent on deputation he is sent out of his cadre whereas the transfer remains limited within the department possessing the same nature of work, which technically can be termed as an internal adjustment.
“An employee may not have any right to continue remain posted outside his cadre for the period fixed in the order of the deputation as in the interest of the smooth functioning of the administration one can be repatriated at any time to his parent department”, he further said, adding “when the assigned work gets finished then what remains the fun to keep the employee in the organization as it is merely mismanaging the functioning of the Government and if after the completion of the assignment the deputed employee is sent back to his original department it will serve the working of the parent department which, somehow, got defunct because of that particular deputation”.
After going through the arguments of both appellant and respondent, DB found the appeal meritless and accordingly dismissed the same.
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