2021 PLC (CS) 1103
As can be seen from the judicially approved definition of the term ‘deputation’, for an employee, it is in the nature of a transfer. Rather it is a specie of the wider genus of transfer, albeit outside his existing cadre. Transfer and posting being an incidence of service, it naturally follows that deputation also comes within the realm of conditions of service. That a deputationist is not treated as a civil servant during the period of his deputation makes no difference in this respect. A government servant (including both, civil servants and deputationists) in terms of the governing law, can be ordered to serve at any place by the competent authority and short of allegations of political victimization or unfair labour practice, transfer orders of government servants are, generally and ordinarily, not interfered with because the courts show respect to the exercise of discretion by the competent authorities on the administrative and executive side and also because transfer is an incidence of service. Such judicial treatment of transfer and posting being the norm, the exercise of being sent on deputation or of being withdrawn from such deputation and being surrendered, hardly qualifies as a justiciable matter. In fact it is a polycentric matter.
Deputation is made purely on account of administrative exigencies and for the purpose of administrative convenience. As and when a particular department is faced with a shortfall of technically savvy personnel trained in a particular field, it can seek the services of technically qualified persons in that field from some other department of the same government or even from another government of the country. It is for the borrowing department to decide as to when a deputationist is no more required. A deputationist, therefore, cannot be thrust upon an unwilling department. This would compromise the autonomy of the department besides heightening and accentuating a non-existent vested right which is alien to trite and established law.
The ethos of the concept of deputation reveals that it can only come to pass with the consent of lender and borrowing departments and the incumbent of the post has no right, either to ask for completion of tenure, or even to any right to remain on deputation as such. At any time, the lending department can require services of its officers by ordering their repatriation and similarly the borrowing department can relieve or spare him as no longer required.
Deputation is in the nature of a threeway contract and can be continued only if all the parties want it to continue. The moment this tripartite agreement is repudiated by means of non-adherence by the departments, the employee has no legally enforceable right to continue to complete the agreed period of his deputation.
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