Amit Singh Chaudhary And Another vs Union Of India And 3 Ors
2018 Latest Caselaw 3399 ALL

HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
 
 

?AFR 
 
Court No. - 40
 

 
Case :- SPECIAL APPEAL DEFECTIVE No. - 801 of 2018
 

 
Appellant :- Amit Singh Chaudhary And Another
 
Respondent :- Union Of India And 3 Ors
 
Counsel for Appellant :- Siddharth Khare,Shri Ashok Khare
 
Counsel for Respondent :- Vivek Kumar Rai
 

 
Hon'ble Amreshwar Pratap Sahi,J.

Hon'ble Ajit Kumar,J.

Civil Misc. Delay Condonation Application No.1 of 2018

Heard Sri Ashok Khare, learned senior counsel for the appellant.

Cause shown is sufficient. The delay is condoned and the appeal shall be treated to be within time.The office shall allot a regular number to the same.

Application allowed.

Order on appeal

This appeal questions the correctness of the judgement of the learned single judge dated 13.08.2018 whereby the contention raised by the appellants with regard to maintaining their seniority upon transfer on compassionate basis has been held to be a transfer on the request of the employee and thereby seniority as per Clause 99.2 of the Railway Protection Force Rules 1977 has been maintained.

Sri Khare contends that the claim of seniority by the appellants is not hit by the said clause inasmuch as it is an option given by the Railway department under its circular which the appellants have a right to exercise, and the same being a matter of policy of the respondents in the interest of administration, it cannot be said that the appellants have requested for their transfers themselves. He therefore submits that even if such an option has been exercised, the same would not amount to a transfer on request and therefore not covered by clause 99.2.

We have heard learned counsel for the appellants and learned counsel for the respondent Railways.

The contention raised cannot be accepted inasmuch as this exercise of option under the circular dated 23.09.2011 which has been quoted in the impugned judgement is a facility provided to compassionate appointees giving them the option to be posted to a zonal railway of their choice. This circular therefore, gives an opportunity to the concerned compassionate appointee to exercise his or her choice subject to the availability of the vacancy in the opted zone.

The same therefore in our opinion is an option exercisable only when the candidate makes his own voluntary request and is not a compulsion in the interest of administration. Consequently the exercise of choice being a request would squarely be covered by Clause 99.2 of 1987 Rules and therefore we do not find any merit in the arguments advanced on behalf of the appellants.

The appeal is accordingly rejected.

Order Date :- 29.10.2018

saqlain