Railway administration cannot indefinitely withhold relieving after accepting an inter-Railway spouse-ground transfer and issuing NOC.

The four applicants were Station Masters in Pay Level-6 under the Ahmedabad Division of Western Railway. They had applied for Inter-Railway Own Request Transfer to Jaipur Division, North Western Railway, on spouse ground between 2021 and 2023. Their applications were registered under the applicable manual/legacy and HRMS priority framework, with priority positions of 5, 6, 10 and 15 respectively.

Jaipur Division issued a No Objection Certificate (NOC), received by the respondents on 20 August 2025 and valid until 19 August 2026. The applicants were nevertheless not relieved.

The respondents contended that relieving was subject to priority, availability of trained manpower, operational requirements and safety considerations. They relied on the fact that employees senior to the applicants remained in the priority queue, that the Station Master cadre was safety-related, that 27 vacancies existed, and that a proposal had been forwarded for creation of 154 additional posts.

The applicants approached the Tribunal on 27 July 2026, before expiry of the NOC, seeking immediate relieving and consequential directions.

1. Whether the respondents could indefinitely withhold the applicants’ relieving after their Inter-Railway Own Request Transfer applications had been processed, priority positions assigned, and an NOC issued by the receiving Railway on spouse ground?

2. Whether priority position, manpower shortage, safety requirements and the proposed creation of additional posts constituted sufficient and legally sustainable grounds for not relieving the applicants within the validity period of the NOC?

3. Whether the general principle that an employee has no vested right to seek transfer under Para 226 of the IREC displaced the applicants’ right to fair, reasonable and policy-compliant consideration of their duly processed transfer requests?

The Tribunal applied Para 226 of the Indian Railway Establishment Code, Volume I, which provides that a Railway servant has no absolute right to transfer to another Railway, while holding that this principle does not authorise arbitrary or indefinite administrative inaction.

It relied on Railway Board instructions, including RBE No.170/2005, which states that Inter-Zonal Transfer requests made on hardship grounds should not ordinarily be withheld because of vacancies and, if withheld, require a time-bound programme for filling vacancies.

RBE No.203/2019 dated 26 November 2019 requires timely relieving after approval and mandates that delays exceeding or likely to exceed three months be placed before the competent authority with reasons and an expected date of relief.

RBE No.153/2019 requires Railways to assess the reasonable possibility of relief before forwarding a transfer request so that the employee can be relieved promptly after receipt of the NOC.

The Tribunal also applied the principles of non-arbitrariness and consistent administrative action under Article 14, and the welfare-oriented policy favouring posting of spouses at the same or nearby stations.

The general transfer principles in Union of India v. S.L. Abbas, State of M.P. v. S.S. Kourav, Shilpi Bose v. State of Bihar, Gujarat Electricity Board v. Atmaram Sungomal Poshani, Union of India v. Deepak Niranjan Nath Pandit and Namrata Verma v. State of Uttar Pradesh were distinguished as cases concerning ordinary administrative transfers rather than duly processed employee-requested Inter-Railway transfers.

The Tribunal held that the case did not concern an ordinary transfer challenged by an employee, but an employee-requested Inter-Railway transfer which had already progressed through registration, priority determination, forwarding and issuance of an NOC by Jaipur Division.

Consequently, Para 226 of the IREC did not immunise the respondents from the obligation to act fairly and in accordance with their own transfer instructions. RBE No.153/2019 indicated that feasibility should have been assessed before the requests were forwarded; therefore, the respondents could not subsequently rely indefinitely on general manpower shortage after obtaining the receiving Railway’s consent.

The respondents’ reliance on priority was found inconsistent with the material showing that employees allegedly lower in priority had been relieved. If priority was the controlling criterion, the respondents were required to explain the differential treatment; if manpower shortage was the controlling criterion, they had to produce objective material identifying the specific operational deficit and a time-bound plan to address it.

The existence of 27 vacancies and a proposal for 154 additional posts did not establish an immediate and indefinite legal impediment to relieving the applicants, particularly when the proposal had not resulted in sanctioned posts and no time-bound manpower plan was shown.

The applicants’ classification as Station Masters in a safety-related category justified careful operational planning but did not confer an unbounded discretion to disregard the Railway Board’s instructions.

The Tribunal further held that the expiry of the NOC during the proceedings could not prejudice the applicants where the delay was attributable to the respondents. Revalidation was treated as a consequential procedural formality, not as a requirement to submit fresh applications or lose the applicants’ existing priority.

The respondents were directed to take immediate steps to relieve all four applicants from Ahmedabad Division for transfer to Jaipur Division on spouse ground.

Since the NOC had expired during the proceedings, the Western Railway respondents were directed to obtain its revalidation from Jaipur Division, and Jaipur Division was directed to revalidate or issue the NOC. The applicants were not required to file fresh applications or lose their existing priority.

Jaipur Division was directed to keep posts available for them, and the entire process, including revalidation and issuance of relieving orders, was to be completed within two months from receipt of the order.

The respondents were directed to permit the applicants to join the receiving Railway, with no order as to costs.