In short. A stay after the relieving order is harder to get, but being relieved does not end your challenge. If you have been relieved but have not yet joined, the tribunal can still be asked to hold the transfer. If you have joined and someone has taken your old post, a stay is rarely granted, though the transfer can still be quashed and you can be posted back. Most cases take months, not days. This week, object in writing, keep the relieving and joining papers, and decide with your advocate whether to join under protest.
Is this your situation?
- You were relieved on the same day the transfer order reached you, sometimes while you were on leave.
- The office issued a relieving order 'in absentia' without you handing over charge.
- You have joined the new station but still believe the transfer breaks the policy.
- You filed a case or a representation, and the office relieved you anyway.
- Someone has already joined in your old post and you are told nothing can now be done.
- Your joining time is running out and you are unsure whether joining will weaken your case.
- You are a teacher, railway employee or postal official whose transfer came in the middle of the school year.
In short
- Relieved is not the same as joined. Until you join the new post, the tribunal can still be asked to stop the transfer from taking effect.
- Joining under protest protects you. It avoids a charge of unauthorised absence and does not waive your challenge if you say so in writing.
- The interim relief changes after joining. Instead of a stay, you usually ask for a quick decision, a vacancy to be kept, or an early hearing.
- Relieving after a stay is a different problem. If the tribunal had already ordered status quo, the relieving itself may be challenged as disobedience.
- Write down who joined your old post and when. That date often decides whether a stay is still realistic.
- Do not sit on leave to dodge joining. Leave that the office has not sanctioned can be treated as absence and turned into a chargesheet.
Where you stand right now
| Your position today | Can a stay still be sought? | What the tribunal usually looks at |
|---|---|---|
| Transfer order received, relieving date in the future | Yes, this is the ordinary stay case | Policy breach, mala fides, competence of the authority, personal hardship |
| Relieved in absentia, not yet joined, still within joining time | Yes, and urgency is high | Whether relieving was done unfairly or in haste, and whether your post has been filled |
| Relieved and joined the new station | A stay is rarely given; the transfer can still be quashed at the final hearing | Strength of the grounds; whether a direction to decide your representation is enough for now |
| Relieved, joined, and your old post is filled by a regular posting | Stay very unlikely; relief is reposting if you win | Merits, and whether reposting would unsettle another employee who has done nothing wrong |
| Relieved after the tribunal ordered status quo | Ask the bench to restore the earlier position | Whether the department knew of the order when it relieved you |
Is it too late to seek a stay after a relieving order?
Not always. A transfer has two steps on the ground: you are relieved from the old post, and you join the new one. Between those two steps there is a gap, the joining time, and the transfer is not complete until you report at the new station. A stay after a relieving order is most realistic in that gap, and benches have stayed relieving orders that were issued in a rush to defeat a pending challenge.
Once you have joined, and particularly once another officer has joined in your old place, the picture changes. Courts treat transfer as an ordinary incident of government service, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly said that tribunals should not interfere with transfers unless there is mala fides, a breach of a statutory rule, or an order by an authority with no power to make it. Cases such as Shilpi Bose v. State of Bihar (1991), Union of India v. S.L. Abbas (1993) and State of U.P. v. Gobardhan Lal (2004) are cited in almost every transfer case for this reason.
That does not mean the case is over. It means the interim relief you can sensibly ask for is narrower. The final relief, quashing the transfer and posting you back, stays available if your grounds are strong.
Relieved in absentia: the commonest complaint
Many employees tell us the same story. The transfer order arrives in the morning, and by afternoon a relieving order has been issued showing them relieved 'in absentia', without any handing over of charge. Sometimes this happens while the employee is on sanctioned leave. The aim, usually, is to make the transfer a completed fact before anyone can approach the tribunal.
Relieving in absentia is not unlawful by itself; offices are allowed to relieve an employee who refuses or avoids handing over charge. But when it is done in haste, on the same day, while the employee is on leave or after a representation has been filed, it can support an argument that the office acted to defeat your remedy. Benches take note of that, especially when the relieving order is dated before the transfer order was even served.
The practical step is to write to the office the same day. Say that you received the transfer order on a particular date, that you have filed or are filing a representation, that you were not asked to hand over charge, and that you object to being relieved in your absence. Ask for a copy of the charge report. This letter becomes an important annexure to your OA.
Should you join the new post while the case is pending?
In most cases, yes, under written protest, unless a stay is already in hand. The CCS (Joining Time) Rules, 1979 give you joining time depending on the distance between stations (check the current table with your office), and once it runs out without a stay, absence from duty can be treated as unauthorised. Departments then issue a memo for absence, stop pay and, in some cases, start disciplinary action. That converts a transfer dispute into a much harder fight, which is the subject of our page on charges of unauthorised absence.
Joining after transfer does not mean you have accepted it. Tribunals regularly hear challenges from employees who joined under protest. What hurts is joining silently and then complaining months later; that looks like acceptance. Your joining report should carry one or two lines saying you are joining in compliance with the order, under protest, without prejudice to your representation and any proceedings before the tribunal.
There are cases where not joining is defensible, such as a medical emergency backed by hospital records, or a stay or status quo order that clearly covers the relieving. Even then, write to the office explaining why you have not reported and apply for the appropriate leave. Silence is what gets punished.
What the tribunal can still do after you have joined
Where a transfer stay after relieving and joining is out of reach, the bench still has several options. It can direct the department to decide your pending representation within a set time, often four to eight weeks, by a reasoned order. It can list the OA for early final hearing. In some cases it has directed that a post at your old station not be filled on a regular basis until the next date, though this is less common.
At the final hearing, if the transfer is found to breach a binding rule, to be mala fide or punitive, or to have been passed by an authority without power, the tribunal can quash it. The department must then post you back, subject to any directions about the person who replaced you. Some orders leave the exact posting to the department but require a reasoned decision within a set time.
Transfer guidelines themselves are a weaker ground than people think. The Supreme Court has said guidelines do not by themselves create an enforceable right, though a department that ignores its own policy without any reason invites scrutiny. Guidelines that come from a statute or a statutory rule carry more weight. Spouse posting and medical grounds have their own instructions, discussed on our pages on spouse posting at the same station and transfer requests on medical grounds.
Rules and orders you will hear about
Section 24, Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985
Interim orders, including stays, are ordinarily passed after the department has had a copy of your application and a chance to be heard. An order made without notice in an emergency lapses after 14 days unless the tribunal continues it after hearing the department.
Section 20, Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985
The tribunal ordinarily expects a representation first. In transfer cases benches often admit the OA soon after a representation is filed and direct the department to decide it, because waiting six months would make the challenge pointless.
CCS (Joining Time) Rules, 1979
Fix how many days you get to join the new station after being relieved, depending on distance and whether the transfer involves a change of residence. Joining time is treated as duty and paid. Days beyond it without leave can be treated as absence.
Status quo and status quo ante orders
A status quo order freezes things as they stand on the date of the order. A status quo ante order restores the position as it was before a particular act, such as the relieving. Read any interim order carefully: if it says status quo and you were relieved that morning, ask your advocate whether the bench should be approached to clarify what it covers.
Relieved after the tribunal had already intervened
This is a different and more serious situation. If the bench had passed a status quo order, or directed that the transfer not be given effect, and the office relieves you afterwards, the question becomes one of obedience to the tribunal's order. The first step is usually an application in the pending OA asking the bench to restore the earlier position, with the interim order, the relieving order and proof that the department knew of the order.
Proof of knowledge matters. Departments often argue that the relieving order was issued before they received a copy of the tribunal's order. Keep the date and mode by which the order was served on the office: an email with a read receipt, a receipt stamp on a covering letter, or the department's counsel's presence in court when the order was passed.
Where the breach is plain and deliberate, contempt under Section 17 is available, but most benches first give the department a chance to undo the act. Our page on enforcing tribunal orders explains the route.
What to do in the first ten days after being relieved
Note three dates
Write down when the transfer order reached you, when the relieving order is dated, and when you actually came to know of it. Add the date someone joined your old post, if you know it.
Object in writing the same day
Send a short letter to the relieving authority and the transfer-ordering authority. Record that you object to the transfer and to the manner of relieving, and ask for a copy of the charge report and of any order by which your old post has been filled.
File a representation on merits
Separately, write the representation that sets out why the transfer is wrong: policy breach, mid-session disruption, spouse posting, medical need, tenure not complete, or a punitive motive. Attach proof for each point.
Decide about joining with your advocate
If joining time will run out before a hearing is possible, join under protest and say so in the joining report. If you have a medical reason for not joining, apply for leave with the certificate and keep the receipt.
File the OA with an interim prayer that fits your position
If you have not joined, the prayer can be to stay the transfer and relieving. If you have joined, ask for a time-bound decision on your representation, early hearing, or that your old post not be filled regularly meanwhile. Our guide to urgent mentioning before the tribunal covers getting an early date.
Serve the department's counsel and attend the hearing
Give the standing counsel a full set before the matter is listed. At the hearing, have the joining report, the protest letter and your representation ready to hand up.
Advocate B.K. Singh's two tips for relieved employees
Advocate B.K. Singh's first tip concerns the joining report. Clients often join with a one-line report and nothing more. He asks them to add a sentence that they are joining under protest and without prejudice to their representation and any case before the tribunal, and to keep a copy with the office's receipt. Months later, when the department argues that the employee accepted the transfer by joining, that copy answers the point in a single page.
His second tip is to find out exactly when, and by whom, the old post was filled. Ask the office in writing, and if no answer comes, file an RTI application for the order posting the new incumbent and that person's joining report. The bench's willingness to give any interim protection often turns on whether the post is still vacant, held by someone on additional charge, or filled by a regular posting. Without that fact, both sides argue in the dark.
A made-up example: an auditor relieved while on leave
Here's a made-up example. Farida is a Senior Auditor in an accounts office in Chennai. Her son is in Class XII and she is on sanctioned earned leave in February for his board examinations. On 6 February the office issues a transfer order posting her to Port Blair, and on the same day a relieving order shows her relieved in absentia with effect from that afternoon.
She learns of it on 8 February. That evening she sends a letter objecting to being relieved while on sanctioned leave and without handing over charge, and the next day a full representation pointing to the mid-session transfer and her son's examinations. Her joining time would run out in the first week of March.
Her advocate files an OA at the Chennai Bench on 13 February with an interim prayer to stay the relieving and transfer, after serving the department's counsel. The bench, noting that her post has not yet been filled, directs the department to decide the representation within three weeks and orders that she not be compelled to join till then. The department passes a reasoned order rejecting the representation, citing an audit requirement at Port Blair.
Farida joins at Port Blair under protest within the extended time and amends her OA to challenge the rejection. The case continues on merits. Whether she will be posted back is not known yet; what she has protected is her record, since there is no question of absence, and her right to argue the case in full.
How this plays out in different departments
Kendriya and Navodaya Vidyalaya teachers. Transfers follow points-based policies with displacement rules and annual cycles. A teacher relieved mid-session can often show the policy itself discourages such moves. Points disputes are discussed in our guide on KVS displacement points.
Railway staff. Inter-divisional transfers and transfers on administrative grounds are frequent, and relieving by the divisional office is often quick. Divisional seniority and promotion chances can be affected, so record your objection and keep the relieving memo with its date.
Postal staff. Rotational transfers of Postal Assistants and Inspectors are made under circle-level guidelines. Gramin Dak Sevaks have their own engagement rules; a GDS cannot be transferred in the same way as a departmental employee, and limited transfer facilities exist on request.
Group A officers. Transfers are often to other cities or headquarters, and challenges usually rest on mala fides or a statutory breach. Relieving tends to happen fast, and a quick decision on the representation is often the most practical interim relief.
Defence civilians. MES and ordnance civilian staff go to CAT, not the Armed Forces Tribunal. Movement orders can be short, so the protest letter and joining report matter more here than anywhere.
Time and cost from relieving to final order
| Stage | Typical time | Cost in general terms |
|---|---|---|
| Protest letter and representation | Within a day or two of being relieved | Nil, apart from postage |
| Joining time under the Joining Time Rules | A set number of days depending on distance; check your office's table | Paid as duty |
| Preparing and filing the OA | Three days to two weeks | OA fee of Rs 50 under Rule 7 (check the current amount); copying and courier |
| First listing and interim hearing | Days, if mentioned urgently; otherwise a few weeks | Advocate's fee discussed at the first meeting and agreed in writing |
| Department's reply and your rejoinder | Four to twelve weeks after notice, often longer | Drafting charges for the rejoinder, as agreed |
| Final hearing and order | Commonly six months to a year or more, depending on the bench | As agreed for the final hearing stage |
Which bench hears a transfer challenge after relieving?
This is a real question once you have moved. Rule 6 of the CAT (Procedure) Rules lets you file where you are posted or where the cause of action arose, wholly or in part. If you were relieved from Chennai and have joined at Port Blair, the cause of action arose in Chennai, where the order was served and you were relieved, and you are now posted in Port Blair, which falls under the Kolkata Bench. Either may be open; your advocate will choose the more convenient and the safer of the two.
If you already filed before being relieved, the case stays where it was filed. You do not need to refile at the bench covering your new station. Transfer of a pending case between benches is possible under Section 25 only by the Chairman's order and is uncommon.
Delhi employees and ministry staff go to the Principal Bench. Uttarakhand cases have been heard by the Principal Bench since 2023. Employees of central PSUs, banks and CAPFs cannot use CAT for transfers at all; they go to the High Court.
Documents that matter in a relieved-employee case
Orders
- Transfer order with its date of issue and date of service on you
- Relieving order, showing whether it was 'in absentia'
- Charge report, if any was prepared
- Order posting someone else to your old post
Your letters
- Same-day protest against relieving
- Representation on merits with its receipt
- Joining report with the protest sentence, stamped by the new office
- Leave applications and sanction orders for the relevant period
Proof of hardship and policy
- The transfer policy or guidelines that apply to your cadre
- Children's school certificates, spouse's posting order, medical records
- Your posting history showing tenure at the old station
When the transfer looks like a punishment
Some transfers follow a complaint the employee made, a refusal to sign a file, or a pending inquiry. If the order is really a penalty in disguise, the challenge is much stronger, because a punishment can only be imposed through the disciplinary rules, with a chargesheet and a chance to defend. A transfer used as a shortcut for that is open to being set aside even after you have joined.
Proving it is the hard part. Departments rarely write the real reason on the order. What helps is the sequence of events: the complaint or dispute on one date, a note or letter from a senior officer referring to it, and the transfer a few days later, out of the normal cycle, with no administrative reason given. File notings obtained through RTI sometimes show the link directly, and a reply affidavit that gives no real reason for an out-of-turn move can itself support the inference.
Allegations of mala fides against a named officer usually require that officer to be made a party by name, so the officer can answer. Do not make such allegations lightly. A bench that finds them unsupported tends to view the rest of the case with suspicion too.
Mistakes that turn a fair challenge into a weak one
The first is silence. Employees who are relieved and simply go home, hoping someone will sort it out, often end up with an absence memo before any case is filed. Write the protest letter the same day.
The second is a medical certificate obtained only to avoid joining. Benches and departments see many of these. A genuine illness supported by hospital records and treatment notes is one thing; a private certificate for 'rest' issued on the day of relieving is another, and it can damage your credibility on everything else.
The third is waiting for the representation to be decided before filing anything. In transfer cases the six months in Section 20 is not a waiting period you must use up. Once the relieving has happened, file promptly, and if the department later decides the representation, amend the OA to bring that order on record; our guide on amending an OA after a new order explains how.
The fourth is arguing only hardship. Hardship moves a bench to ask the department to reconsider; it rarely makes a transfer illegal by itself. Pair it with whatever rule, policy clause or tenure provision has been ignored.
What to do this week
If you have been relieved but not joined, act today: protest in writing, file the representation and get the papers to an advocate, because the interim relief you can ask for shrinks once you join. If you have already joined, the case is still alive; gather the joining report, the representation and the order filling your old post, and file a reasoned challenge. Our page on challenging a transfer order sets out the grounds the tribunal accepts, and the guide on the three tests for a stay explains how benches weigh interim relief.
If your relieving came after a stay or status quo order, treat it as a separate issue and raise it with the bench quickly, with proof that the department knew of the order. For help with a transfer challenge, the transfer case page is the place to start.
For advice on your own relieving and joining papers, or for updates on how benches are treating transfer stays, contact Advocate B.K. Singh.
Frequently asked questions
Can CAT stay a transfer after I have been relieved?
It can, particularly if you have not yet joined the new post and your old post has not been filled. Once you have joined and someone else holds your old post, a stay is rare. The tribunal can still quash the transfer at the final hearing.
Does joining the new posting mean I accepted the transfer?
Not if you join under protest and say so in writing in the joining report. Tribunals regularly hear challenges from employees who joined while objecting. Joining silently and complaining much later is what weakens a case.
What is relieving in absentia?
It is an order relieving you from your post without you physically handing over charge. Offices use it when an employee is absent or refuses to hand over. When it is done in haste to defeat a challenge, it can be questioned before the tribunal.
My joining time is ending. Should I take leave instead?
Leave must be applied for and sanctioned; unsanctioned absence can lead to a chargesheet. If there is a genuine medical reason, apply for leave with hospital records. Otherwise joining under protest is usually safer.
What is the difference between status quo and status quo ante?
Status quo keeps things as they are on the day of the order. Status quo ante restores the earlier position, for example before you were relieved. If you are unsure what an order covers, ask your advocate whether the bench should be asked to clarify it.
Will I get pay for the days between relieving and joining?
Joining time allowed under the rules is treated as duty and paid. Days beyond joining time without sanctioned leave may be treated as absence. Keep all leave applications and orders.
Can I file the OA where I have now been posted?
Often yes, because Rule 6 of the CAT (Procedure) Rules lets you file where you are posted or where the cause of action arose. If the case was filed before you moved, it stays at the original bench.
My transfer order was cancelled for a colleague but not for me. Is that a ground?
Unequal treatment can support a challenge if your cases are truly similar and there is no reason for the difference. Gather the colleague's order and the facts that make your positions alike. It works best alongside a policy or rule breach.
Advocate B.K. Singh
Founder of B.K. Singh & Associates. MCA, LL.B., LL.M. More than twenty years in practice before the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court and other High Courts, the Central Administrative Tribunal and other tribunals. This guide was written and reviewed by his team.
This guide explains the law in general terms and is not legal advice. For advice on your own papers, contact the team.
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