The CAT has quashed the transfer of a 100% visually impaired IAS officer to Arunachal Pradesh, ruling that the government failed to conduct an individual assessment, violating the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.
Tribunal Quashes Transfer of Visually Impaired IAS Officer
The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has quashed the transfer of a 100% visually impaired IAS officer from Delhi to Arunachal Pradesh, holding that applying the same rotational transfer rules to a totally blind officer without an individual assessment of her medical and support requirements amounted to treating “unequals as equals”. The Tribunal said that the government’s transfer guidelines for officers of the AGMUT cadre, being executive instructions, cannot override statutory protections available under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.
Allowing the plea filed by IAS officer Pranjal Patil, the CAT held that the Ministry of Home Affairs had failed to establish any specific administrative constraint that justified her transfer to Arunachal Pradesh despite her benchmark disability and need for specialised medical care and support. The Tribunal noted that while transfer is ordinarily an incident of service and courts exercise limited judicial review over transfer orders, the general principles governing transfers do not operate in the same manner when the employee is a person with disability.
Legal Grounds for the Decision
“The general principles noticed above do not, however, exhaust the inquiry where the employee is a person with disability,” the Tribunal observed, referring to the statutory obligation of government establishments to provide reasonable accommodation. The Bench of Member (Judicial) Rajveer Singh Verma held that the AGMUT transfer and posting guidelines must be read subject to Section 20 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act and the Department of Personnel and Training’s instructions concerning posting and transfer of persons with disabilities.
Patil, a 2017-batch IAS officer, suffers from 100% visual loss and has had no perception of light since childhood. She was initially allotted the Kerala cadre but was transferred to the AGMUT cadre in 2018 under the policy applicable to physically handicapped officers and joined the Delhi segment in 2020 to access medical and social support. The Ministry of Home Affairs transferred her from Delhi to Arunachal Pradesh on September 12, 2024, followed by a relieving order on October 17, 2024. Her representation against the transfer was subsequently rejected through an order dated November 6, 2024.
Rejection of Rotational Transfer Logic
The respondents had defended the transfer on the ground that senior-scale IAS officers were required to complete a minimum tenure in Category B or hard-area segments and that Patil had spent nearly four years in Delhi without any tenure in such segments. However, the Tribunal found that this reasoning itself demonstrated that the transfer was a routine or rotational transfer. “On the respondents’ own showing,” the Tribunal said, the officer was moved because the applicable guidelines required officers to complete tenure in Category B segments and because she was due for movement along with her batch.
“A movement made because an officer has completed a tenure in one category and is due, along with her batch, for a tenure in another category is the very definition of a routine or rotational transfer,” the Tribunal held. It said the respondents could not rely upon the rotational tenure requirement to justify the transfer while simultaneously arguing that the protection available to persons with disabilities against rotational transfers did not apply.
Lack of Administrative Justification
The Tribunal further rejected the government’s claim that a shortage of senior-scale officers in Arunachal Pradesh constituted an administrative constraint sufficient to override the disability-related protections. It noted that the respondents had placed no material before the Tribunal regarding the sanctioned and working strength of senior-scale officers in Arunachal Pradesh, the number of vacancies, other eligible officers who could have been posted there, or why the requirement could be met only by transferring the “one officer in the batch who is totally blind”. A bare assertion regarding a shortage of officers, unsupported by particulars, could not discharge the burden resting on the employer, the Tribunal said.
The CAT also found fault with the manner in which Patil’s representation had been considered. It observed that reasonable accommodation requires an individualised assessment of what a particular officer needs to discharge her duties with dignity and on an equal footing with others, rather than a mechanical application of a general transfer policy. The Tribunal noted that Patil was under continuous specialised medical care at Sitaram Bhartia Institute and ICARE Eye Hospital in Noida and also required regular visits to AIIMS. It further noted that her sole caregiver, her grandmother, had died shortly before the transfer order was issued. The respondents had not placed any material to show that comparable specialised ophthalmic care or an equivalent support system was available at her place of posting in Arunachal Pradesh, the Tribunal said.
Final Directions and Observations
“Applying to a totally blind officer, without individual assessment, the same tenure rule that applies to able-bodied officers is the treatment of unequals as equals,” the Tribunal held, adding that such an approach was violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. Rejecting the government’s contention that Patil had accepted the liability of serving anywhere within the AGMUT cadre when she sought the cadre transfer, the Tribunal held that a statutory right cannot be waived merely by accepting a general transfer liability. The Bench noted that her transfer to the AGMUT cadre had itself been granted under the policy applicable to physically handicapped officers and that the respondents acknowledged that she had sought the cadre to remain in Delhi because of her medical requirements.
The Tribunal consequently quashed Patil’s transfer order dated September 12, 2024, the relieving order dated October 17, 2024, and the November 6, 2024 order rejecting her representation. It directed the authorities to continue her in, or repost her to, the Delhi segment of the Joint AGMUT cadre within four weeks. The Tribunal further directed that if any future administrative necessity arises to post her outside Delhi, the authorities must first pass a reasoned order after hearing her, specifically recording the administrative constraint, considering her medical condition and support requirements on the basis of current medical evidence, and examining whether she could instead be accommodated in Delhi or another Category A segment with comparable specialised medical care and support.
Significantly, the Tribunal also directed that Patil’s non-completion of tenure in Category B segments on account of her disability should not be held against her for promotion, empanelment, central deputation or any other service benefit.
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