Mr. Ankur Chhibber, Adv v. UNION OF INDIA OTHERS

Judgment

1. The petitioner joined as Assistant Commandant in the Central Reserve Police Force1 on 12 October 2011. He was posted at the Central Office of the CRPF at New Delhi on 1 June 2016 and has been continuing there since.

2. Vide Signal dated 1 August 2018, the petitioner was transferred to the 90th Battalion at Anantnag. The petitioner represented against the transfer, citing his own, as well as his family’s health and other 1 CRPF W.P.(C) 3369/2020 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AJIT KUMAR Signing Date:22.04.2025 16:14:12 issues which did not allow him to accept the posting. He subsequently approached this Court by means of WP (C) 11195/2018, challenging

the order of transfer. The writ petition was disposed of, by this Court, vide order dated 16 October 2018, directing the respondents to take a decision on the petitioner’s representation and reserving liberty with the petitioner to represent against the decision, if aggrieved. The respondents rejected the petitioner’s representation vide order dated 5 November 2018. Ultimately, the petitioner reported at Anantnag on 28 January 2019.

3. On 4 February 2019, the petitioner had applied for resignation the post of Assistant Commandant, vide the following communication: “To, The President of India Govt of India Rashtrapati Bhawan New Delhi. (Through Proper Channel) No.G-II-01/2019 DY Dated: 04 Feb, 2019 Sub: Request for acceptance of Resignation from the service. Respected Sir, With due regards this is to submit that I am Dinesh Yadav, Assistant Commandant IRLA No.8866 presently posted in 90 Bn CRPF joined CRPF on 12 Oct 2011 as a Directly appointed Gazetted Officer. Sir, due to my personal and family reasons I am finding it very difficult to continue to perform my duties in CRPF smoothly. So I am submitting my resignation from the service. W.P.(C) 3369/2020 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AJIT KUMAR Signing Date:22.04.2025 16:14:12 Sir, I have taken this decision very thoroughly and after consulting with my family. I therefore, request to the honorable President of India to kindly accept my discharge from 30 April, 2019. Thanking you, Dated: 04 Feb 2019 Place: Uranhall (J&K) Yours faithfully, Sd/- Dinesh Yadav Asstt. Comdt 90 Bn CRPF”

4. Mr. Chhibber submitted that the application for withdrawal was recommended by the Ministry of Home Affairs and forwarded to the DG, CRPF for further action. Mr. Chhibber sought to characterise this as an acceptance of the petitioner’s request for withdrawal of resignation. Mr. Chhibber submits that the aforesaid application was accepted by the respondent w.e.f. 31 May 2019. He has taken us through certain notings in that regard which, according to him, evince a tentative acceptance of the petitioner’s application as being meritorious.

5. We are not inclined to enter into that aspect as it is a well settled position that file notings do not confer any right on a citizen as they merely represent a tentative opinion taken on the file which is always open to change. It is only the final order which is communicated to the citizen which can constitute the basis of a claim in law. A recent decision, which reiterates this position, is to be found in Yadaiah v W.P.(C) 3369/2020 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AJIT KUMAR Signing Date:22.04.2025 16:14:12 State of Telangana2, from which the following paragraphs merit reproduction in this context: “61. Coming now to the issue of the date of assignment, we agree entirely with the respondent's stance that the actual assignment took place only at the time of issuance of temporary pattas and not at any point prior thereto. On perusal of the documents brought on record, which are merely collection of inter- departmental correspondence before the issuance of temporary pattas, we find that the assignment process was still underway. The appellant's reliance on unfounded as the same only communicated the sanction by the executive and nothing else. In fact, the letter dated 4-6-1960 brings out the fact that the area of the sanctioned land was to be reduced to 142 acres and 39 guntas and then only was to be assigned. In this regard, this Court has repeatedly held and recently reiterated again in Mahadeo v Sovan Devi3 that: the document dated 28-10-1953 It settled is well inter-departmental “15. communications are in the process of consideration for appropriate decision and cannot be relied upon as a basis to claim any right. This Court examined the said question in a judgment reported as Omkar Sinha v Sahadat Khan4. Reliance was placed on Bachhittar Singh v State of Punjab5, to hold that merely writing something on the file does not amount to an order. Before something amounts to an order of the State Government, two things are necessary. First, the order has to be expressed in the name of the Governor as required by clause (1) of Article 166 and second, it has to be communicated. As already indicated, no formal order modifying the decision of the Revenue Secretary was ever made. Until such an order is drawn up, the State Government cannot, in our opinion, be regarded as bound by what was stated in the file.” (Emphasis supplied) Similarly, in Bachhittar 62. Singh v State of Punjab which is cited in the above reproduced paragraph notes: the decision of this Court “9. The question, therefore, is whether he did in fact