Transfer-policy tenure guidelines create no indefeasible right; interference requires statutory violation or established mala fides.

The applicant, an SDE (MW) in BSNL, Bihar Circle, challenged his transfer order dated 22 January 2022, by which he was transferred from Bihar Circle to West Bengal Circle, and the consequential relieving order dated 30 April 2022.

He contended that the transfer violated paragraph 11(a) of the BSNL Transfer Policy dated 7 May 2008, which, according to him, contemplated an 18-year tenure in a Circle; he had served approximately 14 years in Bihar.

The respondents submitted that officers in the SDE and higher cadres were liable to serve at different places according to organisational requirements.

During the proceedings, the applicant relied on subsequent developments, including his application for repatriation to Bihar through the HMS/Online Transfer Portal and a representation dated 18 May 2026 citing the educational needs of his daughter.

Whether the transfer order dated 22 January 2022 and the consequential relieving order dated 30 April 2022 violated the BSNL Transfer Policy or any statutory provision?

Whether the transfer was vitiated by mala fides, arbitrariness, discrimination, or an extraneous purpose, particularly because it allegedly accommodated Shri Kaushal Kishore?

Whether the applicant’s subsequent request for repatriation to Bihar and the educational needs of his daughter justified interference with the original transfer order?

Transfer is ordinarily an incident of service, and an employee has no vested right to remain posted at a particular place.

Judicial review of a transfer order is limited; interference is justified only where the order violates a statutory rule, is issued by an incompetent authority, is vitiated by established mala fides, or is based on irrelevant or extraneous considerations.

The Tribunal relied on Shilpi Bose v. State of Bihar, 1991 Supp (2) SCC 659; Union of India v. S.L. Abbas, (1993) 4 SCC 357; and Somesh Tiwari v. Union of India, (2009) 2 SCC 592.

A non-statutory transfer policy must ordinarily be considered and should not be departed from arbitrarily, but a tenure guideline does not create an absolute and indefeasible right to remain in a particular Circle when administrative exigencies justify transfer.

The principles in T.S.R. Subramanian v. Union of India require transfers to be based on proper, non-arbitrary consideration, but do not prohibit every transfer made before the expiry of a policy tenure.

Personal hardship and the educational requirements of a child may warrant objective consideration by the competent authority, but they do not confer an absolute right to a particular posting; Director of School Education, Madras v. O. Karruppa Thevan, 1994 Supp (2) SCC 666, was treated as fact-specific.

The Tribunal held that paragraph 11(a) of the BSNL Transfer Policy could not be read in isolation as conferring an enforceable right to remain in Bihar until completion of 18 years.

Read as a whole, the policy preserved the management’s authority to transfer employees in the interests of administration and organisational requirements.

The applicant failed to identify any statutory provision prohibiting his transfer or to establish that the authority lacked jurisdiction.

The allegation that the transfer was made to accommodate Shri Kaushal Kishore was unsupported by sufficient material: although Kaushal Kishore had been transferred to West Bengal on 15 September 2021 and the applicant on 22 January 2022, no direct nexus or exclusive benefit was demonstrated.

Mere differential treatment of employees did not establish mala fides or an Article 14 violation without evidence of an impermissible or extraneous purpose.

The Tribunal further held that events occurring in 2026 could not retrospectively invalidate the 2022 transfer order.

The applicant’s request for repatriation constituted a separate administrative matter, involving disputed factual questions concerning manpower requirements and the treatment of Shri Kaushal Kishore.

The applicant’s representation concerning his daughter’s education was left for objective consideration by the competent authority, but the Tribunal declined to convert that hardship into a legal entitlement to transfer.

The Tribunal also criticised the representation’s allegedly coercive language, observing that an asserted intention to prolong litigation unless the transfer demand was accepted amounted to an abuse of process.

It held that the transfer dated 22 January 2022 and the relieving order dated 30 April 2022 were not shown to violate any statutory provision or the BSNL Transfer Policy, nor were they established to be mala fide, arbitrary, discriminatory, or based on an extraneous purpose.

The Original Application was therefore dismissed.

The applicant’s pending representation dated 18 May 2026 was left to the competent authority for consideration in accordance with the applicable policy and administrative exigencies, without any direction to grant the requested transfer.

Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, were disposed of, and there was no order as to costs.