The Hindu Business Line : Deputationists have no legal right for absorption in foreign dept: HC

EMPLOYEES who had been sent on deputation to a different department did not have any right under service jurisprudence to continue in the foreign department, the Madras High Court has ruled.

The claim of the 19 appellants, who were on deputation from the Fire & Rescue Services Department of the Tamil Nadu Government, that they had to be absorbed in the services of the Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd, Karaikal, as a matter of right was not at all guaranteed under the Constitution. As such the appellants could not sustain their claim, the First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Mr B. Subhashan Reddy and Mr Justice K. Gnanaprakasam, held.

Dismissing the writ appeals challenging the order of the single judge vacating the interim injunction (the interim injunction was in favour of the appellants), the Bench said there were no good or valid reasons to interfere with the orders of the single judge.

In their writ petitions, the 19 employees of the Tamil Nadu Fire & Rescue Services Department sought for relief to issue directions to the respondents (TN Government & ONGC) to consider and absorb them in the ONGC.

The petitioners were sent on deputation to the ONGC initially for a period of three years and it was extended by two more years. In February 1999, the Tamil Nadu Home Secretary advised the Fire Services Director that keeping people on deputation for more than four years was contrary to the norms and directed him to either repatriate them to the parent department or ask the foreign employer (ONGC) to absorb them permanently. The Fire Services Director was not willing to spare the services of the petitioners to the ONGC. Thereafter, the petitioners approached the Court to assail the said action of the Fire Services Director.

On behalf of the appellants, it was submitted that the ONGC required for its Cauvery project nearly 70 fire personnel against which only 12 regular employees and 20 on deputation were now available. If the ONGC was not absorbing the latter, fire service would be grossly insufficient to take care of fire service safety requirements. A committee, it was submitted, had suggested that ONGC absorbed the appellants.

On behalf of the respondents, it was argued that the appellants were only on deputation and they were always liable to be repatriated to their parent department, and they could not claim any right as vested right. The law had been well settled that unless their claim for permanent absorption in the department where they worked on deputation, was based upon any statutory rule, regulation or order having the force of law, a person on deputation could not assert and succeed in any such claim for absorption.

The Bench said that when the parent department wanted to recall those on deputation to repatriate them, the same could not be questioned or stalled by the appellants. Repatriation of its employees by the parent department was a rule and allowing them to continue in the foreign department was only an exception, and the exception could not be allowed.

Citing apex court decisions, the bench said that the appellants could not challenge the action of the parent department in repatriating the appellants.

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