Asha Menon DECISION
Asha Menon, J.
[VIA VIDEO CONFERENCING]
W.P. (C) 3697/2020 & C.M. Appl. No. 13225/2020 (for stay)
1. This petition has been filed by the petitioner, who is employed as a Sub-Inspector in CISF, presently at NLC, Barsingsar, Bikaner, with the following prayers:
"a) Issue appropriate Writ, Rule, Order or Direction quashing/setting aside the transfer letter bearing No. E-38014/North Sector/Posting/Misc/Vol-1/2020-5306, North Sector HQrs Order No. 36/2020 dated 12/06/2020 (ANNEXURE-P/1); and
b) Pass such other or further order as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case in favour of the Petitioner and as against respondents."
2. The posting order has been challenged on the ground that it was vindictive as the petitioner had filed Writ Petition (C) No. 13074/2019 in the High Court praying for a direction to the respondents to pay Transportation Allowance (TPTA) which was pending and in which the Court had issued notice after which the respondents had started harassing and pressurizing the petitioner to withdraw it. It is also contended that a false F.I.R. No. 42/2020 had been registered against the son of the petitioner on 15th May, 2020 once again to force him to withdraw W.P.(C) No. 13074/2019 and the transfer order in question was issued a month thereafter. Thus, the transfer was clearly malafide and liable to be set aside.
3. It is further submitted that as per the Posting Policy mentioned in Clause 25 of the Circular No. 22/2017 dated 25th September, 2017 (placed as Annexure-P/7 to the petition) a person has to complete three years at a station before he could be transferred, but in the case of the petitioner, he was being transferred after completion of only two years without cogent reason and thus the transfer order smacked of malafide as also discrimination and was liable to be set aside. His representation dated 16th June, 2020 had not been considered or disposed of till the filing of the petition.
4. During the course of arguments, the learned counsel for the petitioner Sh. Upadhyay also relied upon the order dated 20th May, 2020 whereby all transfer cases were deferred in view of the Covid-19 scenario and budgetary restrictions and prayed that the same be applied to the transfer of the petitioner and the Court should direct deferment of his transfer till 31st March, 2021.
5. In the counter affidavit filed by the respondent/CISF, the filing of the writ petition by the petitioner for payment of TPTA is not denied but it is further submitted that transport allowances were being paid to the CISF personnel in accordance with the extant rules. As regards the lodging of the F.I.R., against the son of the petitioner, it is stated that the son had violated the quarantine rules by meeting a milkman without mask and when the Unit CHM HC/GD Ram Niwas objected to such conduct, the son of the petitioner had punched his nose causing him injury for which HC Ram Niwas had be taken to PBM Hospital Bikaner following which the F.I.R. No. 42/2020 was registered against him. The learned counsel for the respondent, Mr. Rishabh Sahu, thus submitted that there were no malafides in the transfer of the petitioner from Barsingsar to NTPC, Tapovan. According to Mr. Sahu, the transfer was based on administrative exigencies which were in any case excluded from the deferment order dated 20th May, 2020.
6. Mr. Upadhyay, the learned counsel for the petitioner, however, questioned this description of the transfer, pointing out that the Annexure R-6 to the counter-affidavit referred to the past conduct of the petitioner, which had no relevance to his tenure at Barsingsar, where he had been posted from 1st May, 2018 to till date. It was his contention that for whatever were his previous indiscretions, the petitioner had suffered pen........