The Delhi High Court on Thursday dismissed the plea of an Indian Army Brigadier to stay his transfer to a ‘Peace Station’ instead of ‘Field Station’.
A Divisional bench of Justices Asha Menon and Rajiv Sahai Endlaw rejected the contention of the Brigadier regarding the unjust posting to Field Station when he was already posted at a Field Station.
“We do not find any mala fides attached to the posting orders as the organization, on the petitioner’s own showing, values him. They have acknowledged his good work. They have given him several postings from a ‘Peace Station’ to another ‘Peace Station’. He ought not to complain now when his services are required at another ‘Field Station’, though he has been at Srinagar for the past 18 months.”
The petitioner has been in Indian Army for almost 29 years and he has served during development of critical infrastructure in the then State of Jammu and Kashmir under critical Counter Insurgency conditions.
It was the contention of the Petitioner’s Counsel that the postings of Brigadiers are governed by a posting procedure, which was to ensure fairness, transparency, uniformity, perspective planning and interaction while issuing posting orders in respect of an officer holding the rank of a Brigadier.
The Counsel also relied on an advisory that states the utilization of the Posting Planning Self Analysis (PPSA) to consider the choice of the officers. When the MS Branch was preparing posting orders, this automatically opens out as a drop-box and it was clear that the posting orders impugned in this petition had been issued without looking at the PPSA and without realizing that the time for the same had not yet come as far as the petitioner was concerned.
The Counsel for the petitioner also stated that when all other officers have been posted from a ‘Field to Peace Station’ or ‘Peace to Field Station’, the petitioner’s case alone was of posting from ‘Field Station to Field Station’
The counsel for the respondent stated that there was no such policy of posting and though accommodation was given to officers, there was no right to seek any particular posting. He also stated that for nine years continuously, the petitioner had been posted from ‘Peace Station to Peace Station’ and that when the petitioner has benefited from such posting, there were no equities in his favour to object to a ‘Field to Field Posting’.
In order to mitigate at least one grievance of the petitioner, an opportunity was given to him of personal interaction when the respondents were directed to grant an audience to the petitioner to enable him to explain to them his objection to the posting and to enable the respondents in turn to explain to the petitioner the reasons for his posting from Srinagar to Shillong.
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It was informed to the court later that during the aforesaid grant it was acknowledged that he was most suited to go to Field posting for specific duties.
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