PATNA: The Centre has finally transferred Alankrita Pandey, a 2016-batch West Bengal cadre IAS officer, to Bihar in compliance to an order of Delhi high court on the grounds of her marriage with Anshul Agrawal, a Bihar cadre IAS officer of the same batch.
This could be possible only after Alankrita, a native of Uttar Pradesh, fought a long legal battle against the state of West Bengal in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and the Delhi high court.
After getting hitched to her batchmate in 2018, Alankrita made a representation to the Union government, the State of Bihar and the State of West Bengal for her cadre change to Bihar. While the Bihar government responded positively, the state of WB neither passed any order on her representation nor issued a no objection certificate (NOC) for change of her cadre.
Aggrieved by the non-action on the part of the state of WB for over 2 years, Alankrita filed an application before the CAT, seeking a direction to the state of WB to take a decision on her representation for change of cadre. In its reply before the CAT, the state of WB stated that necessary steps on her representation could not be taken on “account of the assembly elections and the covid-19 pandemic.”
The CAT, in its order on July 28, 2021, directed the State of WB to pass orders on Aalnkrita’s representation for cadre change, within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of its order.
But the WB chief secretary, in an order passed on September 1, 2021, refused to accede to the request of Alankrita citing reasons like the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic, need of the services of administrative officers and the shortage of IAS officers in West Bengal. The state of WB, however, proposed that if Anshul, husband of Alankrita, applied for inter-cadre transfer from Bihar to West Bengal then the state of WB may accord NOC to him.
Aggrieved by the WB chief secretary’s order, Alankrita filed a fresh application before the principal bench of CAT at Delhi, challenging the chief secretary’s order and seeking a direction to the state of WB to grant her a NOC for the change of her cadre to Bihar, as per the consolidated cadre-change policy within four weeks. She also submitted before the CAT that in order to raise her child born in January 2020, the presence of the father is also needed.
The CAT, in its order dated June 7, 2022, set aside the chief secretary’s order and asked the state of WB to issue a NOC to Alankrita within a period of 4 weeks.
In the meantime, the state of West Bengal and Alankrita both had filed separate petitions before Delhi high court on the same issue. While clubbing both the petitions and hearing the grievances of both the parties, the Delhi high court, in its order on August 17, said, “We dispose of the petitions by directing the State of West Bengal to pass an order to relieve the officer i.e. Alankrita Pandey within a period of two weeks from today failing which said officer would be deemed to have been relieved from the said cadre and consequently she shall thereafter be permitted to join the Bihar cadre.”
In the wake of the Delhi high court order, the Centre through a recent order transferred Alankrita to Bihar cadre on the grounds of her marriage. Sources in the Bihar government said in the wake of the high court order, Alankrita has already reported her joining in the general administration department in Bihar. “She is currently on maternity leave,” a Bihar government officer told TOI on Tuesday.
