LI Network
Published on: October 26, 2023 at 17:21 IST
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has strongly rebuked the Bank of India for transferring an employee from Chandigarh to Rajkot, disregarding the employee’s family circumstances and violating the bank’s own transfer policy.
The court criticized the bank’s harsh and mechanical approach, particularly towards a married woman with a young child.
In response to the bank’s actions, the petitioner filed a writ petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India, seeking directions from the court. The petitioner had tendered her resignation on December 13, 2018, which the bank declined to accept.
The refusal was based on a memorandum in which the bank initiated departmental proceedings against the petitioner due to her absence from duty. This decision to transfer the petitioner from Chandigarh to Rajkot ran contrary to the bank’s policy, which explicitly states that married female employees should be stationed where their husbands are working or in close proximity.
Justice Jagmohan Bansal, presiding over the case, criticized the bank’s behavior, stating, “The respondents firstly in violation of its Policy transferred the petitioner from Chandigarh to Rajkot and adding to the woes did not accept her resignation.
The approach adopted by the bank seems to be harsh, pedantic and highly technical. It appears that the authorities have acted in a very mechanical and ruthless manner. The conduct of the officials dealing with this matter needs to be deprecated. The respondent-bank is not supposed to behave in the manner in which they have behaved with a married woman having a child of a few months.”
The petitioner, a married woman with a child, was unable to relocate to Rajkot due to her family situation and had repeatedly requested the bank to cancel the transfer order. When her appeals went unanswered, she submitted her resignation. However, the respondents argued that they couldn’t accept her resignation as she hadn’t submitted it at Rajkot, and the Head Office had already rejected her resignation.
The Court found that the bank’s transfer of the petitioner from Chandigarh to Rajkot had violated its own policy and ignored the petitioner’s family circumstances. It noted that in India, obtaining a government job is a challenging task, and it cannot be presumed that someone would resign willingly. The bank’s policy clearly states that a married woman should be placed at the location where her husband works or nearby.
The Court emphasized that the petitioner offered her resignation because it was impossible for her to join at Rajkot.
It was found that the bank’s stand was baseless and noted that the petitioner was not entitled to a pension, so accepting her resignation without requiring her to join at Rajkot would not cause any prejudice to the bank.
Accordingly, the court quashed the memorandum and granted the bank a two-week deadline to reconsider and issue a fresh order on the resignation.
Case Title: Chandani v. Bank Of India & Ors.
