Kept in the North East, Andaman or Ladakh Beyond Your Tenure

Tenure over, no relieving order: what you can do

You can ask for your tenure to be honoured, and if the department sits on it, you can take the matter to the Tribunal. What you cannot do is leave the station on your own because the tenure date has passed. Until a transfer order and a relieving order are issued, you are still posted where you are, and walking away is unauthorised absence.

The realistic aim of a case like this is a decision. The Tribunal will rarely order the department to post you to Kolkata or Lucknow by name. It does, quite often, direct the department to consider your claim under its own tenure policy, to treat you the same way it treated others in your batch, and to pass a reasoned order within a fixed number of weeks. In practice that direction is usually what gets people moved.

Advocate B.K. Singh's first question in these matters is always the same: show me the paper that fixes your tenure. If there is a written policy with a period in it, the case has a spine. If there is only a general understanding that 'people are brought back after three years', the case is much weaker, and the strategy changes.

Where the tenure period actually comes from

What the Tribunal will and will not do

The starting point is unfavourable, and it is better you hear it now. A government servant has no legal right to be posted at a particular place. Courts have said this repeatedly, and the Tribunal will not act as a posting committee. In Chief General Manager (Telecom) v. Rajendra Ch. Bhattacharjee (1995), the Supreme Court set aside a Guwahati Bench order that had directed a choice posting, holding among other things that the tenure and choice posting clause of the 1983 OM was meant for officers brought into the region from outside, not for those who belong to the region.

Within those limits there is real room. The Tribunal will intervene where the department has a written tenure policy and is applying it to some and not to others, where it has rejected your request with a one-line order that gives no reason, where it has kept you back as a disguised punishment, or where it has simply not decided anything for many months. It will also look closely if officers junior to you in tenure have been brought out while you are told there is no vacancy.

The usual result is a direction to the competent authority to decide your representation afresh within a stated time, keeping in view the policy and the cases of similarly placed officers. Sometimes the order goes further and directs that you be relieved by a date once a reliever joins. A direction to post you at a named station is rare and should not be your expectation.

Which bench hears a tenure case from each region

Reasons departments give for keeping you back, and how they usually fare

• No reliever has joined. This is the most common reason and, for a few months, a reasonable one. It weakens badly when it is repeated for a year, or when relievers were found for others in the same office.
• Shortage of staff in the region. A genuine shortage is accepted by the Tribunal. The department must still show it is running the tenure policy in some orderly way, for example by seniority of tenure, and not by whoever has the better contacts.
• You extended voluntarily. If you signed a request or a willingness letter to stay on, read it carefully. An extension for a fixed period ends when the period ends; it is not consent to stay indefinitely.
• Your request reached us late. Some policies require the choice of stations to be given a few months before tenure ends. A late request is not fatal, but it can push you to the next transfer cycle.
• Vigilance or disciplinary proceedings are pending. Departments sometimes hold back officers facing inquiry. That can be justified, but it cannot be used as a reason indefinitely, and it should be stated in writing.
• You belong to the region. If you were recruited in the North East cadre or your home is in the region, the tenure clause may not apply to you at all. This is the point on which many cases fail.

Work out your own tenure date before you write

People often lose credibility in the first representation by getting their own dates wrong. Count from the date you actually joined the station, not the date of the posting order. Then subtract periods that the policy excludes. Under the 1983 OM, long spells of leave, training and similar absence beyond the annual limit are not counted. Departmental policies have their own rules, and some count only physical presence.

Next, check whether your tenure was ever formally extended. An order extending your stay by six months, issued with your consent, moves the date. An order issued without your consent may still move it in practice, but it gives you a ground to complain. Make a one-page chart: date of joining, date tenure would end on the plain reading, excluded periods, extensions, and the revised date. That chart goes into the representation and later into the OA.

Finally, list the people. Who joined the station or region around the same time as you, and where are they now? If two Inspectors who came after you have been posted back to Patna and Bhubaneswar, that is the most persuasive single fact you can put in front of the Tribunal. You may need an RTI application to get their joining and relieving dates.

From the end of tenure to a filed OA

This is the order in which these cases usually move. Do not skip the representation; the Tribunal will expect it under Section 20.

1. Collect the policy and your dates

   Get a copy of the tenure order or transfer guidelines in force when you were posted, and prepare the date chart described above. If your office will not give the policy, ask for it under the RTI Act.

2. Submit your station choices on time

   Many policies ask for three or more choice stations a few months before tenure ends. Give them in writing, through proper channel, and keep the dated acknowledgement.

3. Write the representation

   Once the tenure date has passed with no order, write to the authority competent to transfer you, through your controlling officer. Point to the policy, your dates, and any juniors in tenure who were moved first. Ask for a decision, not a favour.

4. Follow up after two to three months

   A short reminder, again through channel, keeps the record alive. Do not send a new representation with new demands every month; that does not extend the limitation period and can blur your case.

5. Take stock at six months

   Under Section 20 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, if your representation is not decided within six months, you may approach the Tribunal. If it is rejected earlier with a reasoned order, read the reasons carefully before deciding.

6. File the OA

   The OA sets out the policy, your dates, the comparison with others and the department's silence or reasons, and asks for a direction to decide and relieve you. Our page on preparing and filing an OA under Section 19 explains the format.

Throughout, keep working at the station. A pending OA is not a reason to stop attending office, and an absence charge will overshadow everything else in the case.

What to say in the representation, and what to leave out

Keep it to two pages. Start with your name, designation, office and the date you joined the station. State the tenure period and the order that fixes it, attach a copy, and give the date on which your tenure ended. Then list the choice stations you gave and the date you gave them. If others with later tenure dates have been moved, name the posts and dates without attacking the individuals.

Personal circumstances belong in the representation, but after the policy points, not before them. A child about to start Class 10, a parent with cancer in Varanasi, a spouse posted in Bengaluru: these are proper reasons for the department to prefer your case. If a spouse is in central or state service, also invoke the spouse posting instructions, and if there is a disabled dependant or a serious illness, the medical and caregiver instructions apply in addition. Our pages on husband and wife posted apart and on transfer requests on medical grounds or for a disabled child cover those in detail.

Leave out threats of litigation, comments about the officers who were moved, and copies to ministers. Send it through proper channel to the lowest authority competent to decide. A representation sent over the heads of your superiors can be treated as a breach of conduct rules, and then you have a second problem. Our page on writing the representation Section 20 expects has more on this.

Papers to gather for a tenure case

• The posting order sending you to the hard or remote station, and your joining report with date.
• The tenure order or transfer guidelines in force at the time (1983 OM, departmental NER or island guidelines, or the policy for Ladakh stations).
• Any later version of the policy and the date it took effect.
• Every extension order, and any request or willingness letter you signed.
• Leave and training record for the tenure period, to show which spells count.
• Your choice station request and its acknowledgement.
• Your representation, reminders and any reply or rejection.
• Transfer orders showing others relieved before you, or an RTI reply listing joining and relieving dates of officers in your office.
• Family papers if relevant: school certificates, medical records, spouse's posting order.
• Your recent APARs and a note of any pending disciplinary or vigilance matter.

Which bench to file in, and why it sometimes matters

Two benches are usually open to you. Under Rule 6 of the Central Administrative Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 1987, one is the bench covering your present station; the other is any bench in whose area some part of the cause of action arose. For a Superintendent of Post Offices in Shillong, the natural bench is Guwahati. If the order refusing to bring him back was passed by the Directorate in New Delhi, part of the cause of action arose there too, and the Principal Bench is an available choice.

For the islands, the Kolkata Bench covers the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and has held circuit sittings at Sri Vijaya Puram. Lakshadweep comes under the Ernakulam Bench. Ladakh matters go to the Jammu and Srinagar Benches, which have held circuit sittings at Leh and Kargil; check the current schedule before planning travel. Our pages on the Guwahati Bench and the Kolkata Bench give the practical detail for those two.

Choosing a bench is a practical decision. A bench close to the department's regional office means the government counsel can get instructions faster, which helps when you want an early date. A bench near your home city helps if you will have been transferred by the time the case is argued. Hearings by video link are available at many benches, which has reduced the travel problem for employees on the islands and in Ladakh.

Time and cost, stage by stage

The time limit when the wrong keeps repeating

Being kept at a station after tenure is, in a sense, a fresh grievance every day. That does not mean the time limit can be ignored. Section 21 gives you one year from a final order rejecting your claim, or, where you represented and got no answer, one year from the end of the six months the department had to decide. A reasoned rejection starts the clock.

Sending a new representation every few months does not restart it. The Supreme Court made that clear in S.S. Rathore v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1989). If you are past the one-year mark, you will need an application for condonation of delay with real reasons, not just the fact that you were far away. Our guide on when the one-year clock starts walks through the dates.

There is a practical point as well. A tenure case loses its use the moment you are posted out. If your relieving order is likely to come in the next cycle anyway, the time spent on an OA may be better spent pressing the representation and the choice stations.

Can the Tribunal order your release on an interim basis?

Rarely. Section 24 allows interim orders, but an interim order directing the department to transfer you out before the case is decided would grant the final relief at the first hearing, which the Tribunal avoids. What it does sometimes order in the interim is narrower: that your representation be decided within a few weeks, or that any vacancy at your choice station not be filled until the next date.

The situation is different if the department has done something new and hostile, such as ordering you from Port Blair to a remote island post at the end of your tenure, or transferring you within the region a few weeks before your tenure ends so that a fresh tenure begins. A move like that can be stayed in an appropriate case. Our page on interim relief under Section 24 explains how such a request is framed.

How this plays out for different employees

Group A officers are commonly moved under cadre-wide rotation schemes, and the cadre controlling authority decides. The tenure clause tends to sit in the cadre's own transfer policy, and comparison is with other officers of the same service. Group B and C staff are mostly transferred at the circle, zone or commissionerate level, and the comparison is within that unit.

Railway employees on the Northeast Frontier Railway serve within that zone, and inter-railway transfer is by request; the North East tenure clause seldom applies the same way. Postal staff in the North East Circle should check the circle's own tenure orders and the Directorate's rotational transfer guidelines. Defence civilian staff of the MES or Army units in Leh, Kargil or Arunachal are under CAT, and the Ministry of Defence and the MES have their own tenure rules for such stations, which are the first thing to read.

Uniformed personnel are different. Army, Navy and Air Force personnel go to the Armed Forces Tribunal. CAPF personnel in the North East or Ladakh (ITBP, Assam Rifles, BSF, CRPF, SSB) are outside CAT; their transfer grievances go to the High Court after internal remedies, as explained on our page for CAPF, PSU and bank staff.

Allowances and leave while you wait

While you remain at the station, the special allowances attached to it continue: the Special Duty Allowance for the North East, the Island Special Duty Allowance where admissible, and the hard area or special compensatory allowances that apply in Ladakh. Do not accept a stoppage of these just because your tenure date has passed. You are still posted there.

Some concessions come with the posting itself, such as the option of keeping the family at the previous station and drawing house rent allowance there. If the department treats you as still posted, it must give you the benefits that go with that posting. Check your pay slips for the months after your tenure date, and raise any cut in your representation. Use the current rates notified by the Department of Expenditure, not figures from an older circular.

When a case is not the right answer

If your tenure ended only a few months ago, the next transfer cycle is near, and relievers have been named, the cost and friction of litigation are seldom worth it. The same is true where you volunteered for an extension for a career reason and the period has not run out. And if you are a local of the region, the tenure clause probably does not help you, though other grounds may.

Litigation also has a social side in small offices. In a station like Kavaratti or Kargil, everyone knows everyone. A carefully worded representation, a polite reminder and a meeting with the controlling officer sometimes achieve what an OA would, without a year of hearings. The OA is for the case where the department is plainly not applying its own policy, or will not decide at all.

How we handle tenure and overstay matters

We start with the policy and the dates. Advocate B.K. Singh reads the tenure order, the extension papers and any transfer orders of colleagues, and tells you plainly whether there is a case or whether a better representation will do. If an OA is needed, we prepare it with the comparison chart at its centre and appear at the Guwahati, Kolkata or Principal Bench, or by video link elsewhere, with associate counsel where a local appearance is needed. Many of these clients are on an island or in the hills, so we brief and take instructions by phone and online meetings.

If you are a central government employee held at a hard or remote station beyond your tenure, contact Advocate B.K. Singh for advice on your papers or for updates on the transfer rules.