Locally engaged daily-wage workers cannot be transferred absent a service condition permitting transfer.

The petitioners included a registered trade union and workers engaged locally as “No Work No Pay” (NWNP) handling labourers at the Food Corporation of India’s Buniadpur depot.

They were daily-rated workers receiving minimum wages and held no posts under the FCI.

By office order dated 14 October 2025, the FCI directed the workers’ transfer from Buniadpur to Adra, citing labour shortages at Adra and a policy of rationalising labour across depots.

The workers challenged the order, arguing that the depots were more than 400 kilometres apart, they had been engaged locally, and transfer was not a condition of their engagement.

The FCI maintained that the movement was a bona fide rationalisation measure.

Whether the FCI could transfer or shift locally engaged, daily-rated NWNP workers from Buniadpur to Adra when transfer was not a condition of their engagement.

Whether the office order dated 14 October 2025 was lawful in the circumstances, given the workers’ status and the hardship caused by the proposed relocation.

The Court treated the distinction between transfer of an employee holding a post and the shifting of daily-rated workers as material: these petitioners held no post, and their engagement did not include transfer as a condition of service; accordingly, the order was not a conventional service transfer and the shifting was impermissible in the circumstances.

The Court also invoked the principles of natural justice and the obligation of the FCI, as a model employer, not to impose undue hardship on workers.

The judgment refers to the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, and a FCI circular concerning labour rationalisation and depot operations, but does not apply those provisions as the basis for its holding.

The FCI relied on labour shortages at Adra and its rationalisation policy to justify moving workers from Buniadpur.

The Court acknowledged that policy rationale but found that the workers were daily-rated, locally engaged, and not holders of posts to which ordinary transfer principles applied.

Because transfer was not a condition of their engagement, relocating them more than 400 kilometres away would impose serious financial and practical hardship.

The Court therefore concluded that the policy rationale did not justify the impugned order in these circumstances.

It found the order contrary to the principles of natural justice and law, quashed and set it aside, and allowed WPA 24450 of 2025.