IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.16510 of 2009 Date of decision: 15.01.2010 J.S.Yadav ....Petitioner versus Haryana Dairy Development Cooperative Federation Limited and others. ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Ram Niwas Sharma, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. K.K.Gupta, Advocate, for the respondents. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? Yes. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? Yes. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? Yes. ---- K.Kannan, J. (Oral) 1. The petitioner challenges the order of transfer purported to be on “notional deputation” from Milk Union, Kurukshetra to the Milk Union, Rohtak. Earlier he had been transferred from Rohtak to Kurukshetra by order dated 16.04.1984 and when a transfer was again sought, it was objected to by the petitioner on the ground that the transfer takes effect as a deputation to another Union since the Union at various places are governed by different Board of Directors and seniority in cadre are maintained separately for each of the Unions. 2. To the objections raised by the petitioner that he could not be transferred on deputation without his consent, the learned counsel for the respondent refers to the terms and conditions of his appointment Civil Writ Petition No.16510 of 2009 - 2 - which in clause (8) states as follows:- “His services are liable to be transferred to any other entity connected directly or indirectly with the Federation including the Milk Unions.” According to him, this power enabled them to transfer to any other federation including a Milk Union and the petitioner cannot have any objection. 3. It is one thing to state that the respondent does not have a power to transfer but quite another to say that such transfer could be done only in a particular manner in a certain given situation. In this case, the fact that on an earlier occasion, the petitioner had been transferred from Rohtak to Kurukshetra and that he accepted, the same cannot dis-entitle a person, when he was transferred from Kurukshetra to Rohtak, that it could not be so done, without his concurrence, in view of the fact that the transfer here operates only as assuming duty on a deputation elsewhere and that his seniority will be counted only in the place where he was actually working. That a person cannot be sent on deputation to any other place without the concurrence is laid down emphatically through several decisions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and this Court as well and in a recent decision in Bimal Kumar Gupta Versus Haryana Dairy Development Cooperative Federation Limited and others in Civil Writ Petition No.10710 of 2008, dated 08.08.2008, it has been held as follows:- “Coming to the merits, it is well settled that an employer cannot send an employee on deputation without consent of the employee, even if rules so provide. If services of the employee are not required, there may be different Civil Writ Petition No.16510 of 2009 - 3 - remedy available but that could not justify sending any employee on deputation. Reference may be made to the law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Jawahar Lal University V. Dr. K.S.Jawatkar and others, 1989(3) SLR 730.” 4. The decision of the Division Bench of this Court squarely governs the issue and the distinction which is sought to be made by the respondent that it will not apply to a case where the power to transfer is reserved under the terms of appointment cannot be accepted for such a power must be read down to conform to a requirement of consent for a person who is sent out to another place on deputation. 5. The writ petition is allowed and the impugned order of transfer on deputation is quashed. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 15.01.2010 sanjeev