News

Volume 3 Issue 16 - August 15, 2005

Public Sector Bank employees with disability cannot be transferred: H.C.

D.N.I.S. News Service - In a significant move, the Delhi High Court has issued a directive exempting public sector bank employees with at least 40 per cent disability from routine transfers and has added even in most special cases the transfer should be in or around the employee’s hometown.

A bench of Chief Justice B.C. Patel and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul made these observations while hearing a petition by V.K. Bhasin, an employee of State Bank of Patiala, who was disabled in a road accident.

After a number of surgical procedures and being bed-ridden for over 10 months, Bhasin re-joined the bank in Dehradun in 1997. Three years later he was served Transfer Order to proceed to Varanasi, which he objected to on the ground of his disability.

The bank, however, asked him to produce a medical certificate stating that he could not travel, but the Chief Medical Officer of Dehradun turned down the request for the certificate. Incidentally, the bank didn’t even permit him to opt for the Voluntary Retirement Scheme. Three years later, Bhasin approached the Delhi High Court but failed to get any relief from the Court as his medical certificate stated his disability to be only 28 per cent.

Following this, Bhasin challenged the certificate itself and claimed that procedures were not followed. Later, doctors at Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia hopsital examined him three times and found him to be 40 per cent disabled.