Public Interest Transfer Orders Lacking a Specified Tenure or Duration Are Legally Unsustainable

The petitioner, a Head Constable originally posted at Ribada outpost under Gondal Taluka Police Station, Rajkot, was served a charge sheet and subjected to a departmental inquiry following a gambling raid in 2020 where the Local Crime Branch (LCB) arrested persons in his jurisdiction

Subsequent to his acquittal by a competent Criminal Court, the Superintendent of Police, Rajkot, issued an inter-district transfer order dated 03.01.2024

The petitioner challenged this order under Article 226 of the Constitution, contending that the transfer, while citing "public interest," failed to specify a fixed tenure

Whether an inter-district transfer order of a police personnel passed in "public interest" is legally valid if it fails to stipulate a definite tenure or period of operation

Section 28 of the Bombay Police Act, which empowers the State or Inspector-General to employ police officers in any part of the State "for so long as the services of the same may be there required"

Hadamatsinh Naharsinh Sisodiya v. State of Gujarat (SCA No. 12765/2010, affirmed in LPA No. 1400/2013), which established that transfers in public interest must indicate a duration

Haroon Yusufbhai Kadiwala v. Director General of Police (LPA No. 2277/2010), which held that such transfers are akin to deputation and require authorities to clarify the period of exigency to prevent indefinite displacement from the parent cadre

The court observed that while the respondent-State argued the transfer was a valid administrative measure under Section 28 of the Bombay Police Act, the law mandates that such administrative exigencies must be time-bound

Applying the ratio from Hadamatsinh Naharsinh Sisodiya, the court found that the impugned order dated 03.01.2024 was silent on the duration of the transfer

The court reasoned that transferring an officer out of their parent district for an indefinite period under the "guise of public interest" without specifying a tenure is inconsistent with established legal principles and protection of seniority/lien within the parent cadre

Since the order lacked a definite end-point for the exigency, it was deemed arbitrary and unsustainable

It held that a transfer order in public interest must prescribe a specific tenure to be valid

The respondents were directed to repatriate the petitioner to his parent cadre within three months from the date of receipt of the order