The court upheld the validity of the deemed resignation of a foreign service officer for exceeding the maximum tenure on deputation, confirming adherence to departmental guidelines and principles of natural justice while ruling that the resignation takes effect from the notification date, not retrospectively.

JUDGMENT

Jasmeet Singh, J. The present writ petition has been filed by the Union of India through the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) as well as Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) seeking a challenge to the order dated 18.01.2019 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Principal Bench, New Delhi in Original Application (O.A.) No. 1631 of 2017 titled `Sh. Vijay Kumar Trivedi Vs. Union of India & Anr.'.

2. Briefly stating the facts giving rise to filing of the present writ petition are:

3. The respondent is an Indian Foreign Service Officer (IFS) of 1994 Batch and was permitted to join as a "Policy Advisor in the office of Director General, WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Geneva" on foreign deputation basis on 02.03.2009 for an initial period of 6 months. On expiry of that said initial period, on his request, the respondent was granted periodic extensions and the deputation term kept getting extended from time to time till August, 2013.

4. Since both the daughters of the respondent were admitted at schools in Geneva and were in crucial stages of their education and any kind of disturbance might have caused loss or adversely affect the academic careers of his daughters, the respondent vide an email dated 22.07.2013 further sought an extension of his deputation in Geneva till 31.08.2014. The request of the respondent was not acceded to by the petitioners vide their email dated 27.03.2014, and he was directed to return to his parent cadre forthwith.

5. The respondent, after almost 3 months vide email dated 30.06.2014 again made a representation to the petitioners reiterating his difficulties, particularly, about the educational concern of his daughters, and his requirement to complete the ongoing project, requested the petitioners to permit him to continue on deputation till the end of August, 2014.

6. On 05.07.2014, the petitioners informed the respondent vide an email, that for consideration to process his request for extension of tenure of deputation, the respondent would have to submit an undertaking that he would join the Ministry immediately on completion of his daughters' academic Session i.e for the year 2014-15, and will further communicate a probable date on which the respondent will thereby join the Ministry.

7. The respondent vide his reply letter dated 14.07.2014, gave an undertaking stating that the academic Session of his daughter would end in July, 2015, and he will join the Ministry in September, 2015. Albeit in another subsequent undertaking changed the date of his return from September, 2015 to `no later than February, 2016'. However, the petitioner's after realizing that the respondent has no intention to join back his parent cadre/Ministry and was in fact procrastinating on the date of his return vide their email dated 11.08.2014 rejected the undertakings of the respondent and directed the respondent to return to his parent cadre immediately.

8. The respondent, as it appears refused to return and hence the petitioners vide another email dated 10.03.2015, directed the respondent to report to the Ministry immediately and stated that non-adherence to the same would be treated as a violation of clause 11 of DoPT O.M. dated 29.02.2008. The same is reproduced as under:

"Clause 11. The limit of 5 years in one stretch and 7 years in the entire career for foreign service to organizat