Caregivers of children with benchmark disabilities are exempt from routine rotational transfers, subject to administrative constraints.

The applicant, a Leading Fireman in the Puducherry Fire Service Department, was transferred by order dated 03.07.2026 from Puducherry Fire Station to Mahe Fire Station, with immediate effect and without waiting for a substitute to join.

The transfer formed part of an annual routine/rotational exercise involving ten employees and was based on parameters including service in outlying regions and postings in urban and rural fire stations.

The applicant’s case had initially not been recommended for transfer because he was undergoing a specialised course at the National Fire Service College, Nagpur. He was subsequently posted to Mahe after another employee proposed for that posting sought exemption on health grounds.

The applicant challenged the transfer, asserting that he was the primary caregiver of his nine-year-old son, who had been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Mild Intellectual Developmental Disorder. The child was undergoing continuous medical and therapeutic intervention in Puducherry and was studying in a special educational institution there.

The applicant relied on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 and DoPT Office Memoranda dated 08.10.2018 and 02.02.2024, which provide exemption from routine or rotational transfers to Government employees caring for dependants with specified disabilities.

1. Whether the transfer of the applicant, who is the caregiver of a dependent child with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Mild Intellectual Developmental Disorder, violated the protection against routine or rotational transfer contained in the applicable DoPT instructions?

2. Whether the respondents were required to consider the applicant’s request for a posting within the Puducherry region, subject to overriding administrative constraints?

3. Whether the impugned transfer order dated 03.07.2026 was liable to be quashed or modified in the interests of the disabled child and the applicant’s caregiving responsibilities?

The Tribunal applied the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, including the statutory recognition of autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability as specified disabilities under Section 2(r) read with the Schedule.

It relied on the DoPT Office Memorandum dated 08.10.2018 and the consolidated guidelines dated 02.02.2024, under which a Government employee caring for a dependent child or other specified dependant with benchmark disability may be exempted from routine or rotational transfer, subject to administrative constraints.

The Tribunal also relied on the rights-based approach arising from Justice Sunanda Bhandare Foundation v. Union of India & Anr., W.P. (C) No. 116/1998, and the principle that the interests of a disabled child or dependant must receive primacy, as stated by the Delhi High Court in Shambhu Nath Rai v. Union of India & Ors., W.P. (C) No. 7318/2025.

Administrative constraints may prevail only where they are sufficiently compelling to outweigh the disabled dependant’s statutory and welfare interests.

The Tribunal found that the applicant’s son had been medically diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Mild Intellectual Developmental Disorder, both of which fall within the specified disabilities recognised under the RPwD Act and the DoPT instructions.

Since the impugned order was an annual routine/rotational transfer, the applicant fell squarely within the category of caregivers entitled to exemption, subject to administrative constraints.

The respondents’ reliance on the applicant’s ability to attend a six-month course at Nagpur and on the availability of the child’s homemaker mother was rejected as misconceived and insensitive, because the protection was intended primarily for the welfare and continuity of care of the disabled child, not merely for the convenience of the employee.

The proposed posting at Mahe was considered particularly burdensome because it would place the applicant approximately 600 kilometres away across two States, thereby impairing his ability to remain involved in the child’s medical, therapeutic, and educational care.

Nevertheless, the Tribunal recognised that the applicant had not previously served in a rural posting. Balancing that administrative consideration against the statutory protection, it directed the respondents to consider a rural or urban posting within the Puducherry region rather than sustain the transfer to Mahe.

The transfer was accordingly quashed and set aside to that extent.

The respondents were directed to consider the applicant’s representation dated 22.07.2026 and post him at any suitable rural or urban station within the Puducherry region within two weeks of receiving the order.

If the applicant had already been relieved, the intervening period was to be treated as joining time or an extension of joining time, as applicable. The OA was allowed with no order as to costs.