Can a Calcutta High Court review a Delhi tribunal's transfer order?
The Supreme Court says no — a transfer order from the CAT Principal Bench in New Delhi can only be challenged in the Delhi High Court, even if the original case was in Kolkata.
25
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The Supreme Court says no — a transfer order from the CAT Principal Bench in New Delhi can only be challenged in the Delhi High Court, even if the original case was in Kolkata.
A top bureaucrat's case was moved from Kolkata to Delhi. He challenged the transfer in Calcutta High Court — and won. But the Supreme Court just said: that court had no business hearing it.
Alapan Bandyopadhyay, then Chief Secretary of West Bengal, faced disciplinary proceedings for failing to attend a review meeting chaired by the Prime Minister regarding Cyclone YAAS. He challenged the charge memo dated 16 June 2021 before the Kolkata Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). The Union of India then applied to the CAT Chairman to transfer this case from the Kolkata Bench to the Principal Bench in New Delhi under Section 25 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985. According to the Supreme Court's judgment, the Chairman allowed the transfer on 22 October 2021. Bandyopadhyay fought back in the Calcutta High Court, filing a writ petition on 29 October 2021, and got the transfer order set aside. The Union of India appealed to the Supreme Court. The question was not whether the transfer was right or wrong. The question was: which court could even hear the challenge?
When the Chairman moved the case
Under Section 25 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, the CAT Chairman can transfer cases from one Bench to another. The Union of India applied for this. The Chairman, sitting at the Principal Bench in New Delhi, passed the order moving Bandyopadhyay's case from Kolkata to Delhi. The judgment that ran to several pages from the Calcutta High Court set aside this transfer order.
Bandyopadhyay did not go to the Delhi High Court. He went to the Calcutta High Court instead — the court in the city where his original case was filed. The Calcutta High Court set aside the transfer order. The Union of India then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Calcutta High Court had no jurisdiction to review an order passed by a tribunal bench in New Delhi.
The core question: which High Court?
The Supreme Court had to decide one thing: could the Calcutta High Court review a transfer order passed by the CAT Chairman at the Principal Bench in New Delhi? Or could only the Delhi High Court do that?
The answer turned on a distinction that might seem technical but is fundamental to how India's tribunal system works. The cause of action — the set of facts that gives someone the right to sue — for the original case, the charge memo, was in Kolkata. But the cause of action for the transfer order — the Chairman's decision under Section 25 — was in New Delhi, where the Chairman sat and passed the order. These were two separate bundles of facts, giving rise to two separate legal challenges. The Supreme Court bench of Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice C.T. Ravikumar examined the single-page file note that tersely recorded the decision, which formed the core of the dispute.
As the court observed, "the cause of action for challenging an order of transfer under Section 25 of the Act is distinct and independent from the cause of action for the underlying Original Application." This single sentence clarified the entire dispute: the bundle of facts constituting the cause of action for the original application was irrelevant for determining the jurisdictional High Court for the transfer order challenge.
What L. Chandra Kumar settled
The Supreme Court applied its own landmark judgment in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997) 3 SCC 261. In that case, the court had held that all decisions of tribunals created under Articles 323A and 323B of the Constitution can be challenged only before a Division Bench of the High Court within whose territorial jurisdiction the tribunal bench falls.
This means: if the CAT Principal Bench in New Delhi passes an order, only the Delhi High Court can review it. The fact that the underlying case was filed in Kolkata does not matter. The transfer order is a separate decision made by a separate bench in a separate city. The court also cited a string of precedents — JK Industries Ltd. v. Union of India (2007), Union of India v. A. Shainamol, IAS (2021), Kusum Ingots and Alloys Limited v. Union of India (2004), Nawal Kishore Sharma v. Union of India (2014), Navinchandra N. Majithia v. State of Maharashtra (2000), Bhavesh Motiani v. Union of India (2019), and Braj Kishore Thakur v. Union of India (1997) — each reinforcing the principle that territorial jurisdiction follows the seat of the tribunal that passed the impugned order.
Why the cause of action split
The court clarified that the cause of action for challenging a transfer order under Section 25 is "distinct and independent" from the cause of action for the original application. The bundle of facts that made Bandyopadhyay file his case in Kolkata — the charge memo, the disciplinary proceedings — had nothing to do with the Chairman's decision to move the case to Delhi. That decision was made in New Delhi, by an authority sitting in New Delhi, and could only be challenged in Delhi.
The Calcutta High Court had assumed jurisdiction based on where the original case was filed. The Supreme Court said that was wrong. The transfer order was a new and separate administrative act, and its judicial review belonged to the High Court that had territorial jurisdiction over the tribunal bench that passed it. The court further noted that the Chairman had acted under statutory power under Section 25, which permits him to act even suo motu — on his own motion — reinforcing that the order was an independent exercise of authority, not merely a procedural step in the original case.
The judgment that was void from the start
The Supreme Court held that the Calcutta High Court's judgment was "void ab initio" — invalid from the very beginning — because the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case at all. A court cannot acquire jurisdiction just because the parties appear before it or because the underlying dispute has a connection to its territory. Jurisdiction is determined by where the impugned order was passed. The court also expunged disparaging and scathing remarks made by the Calcutta High Court against the CAT Chairman, holding that such remarks were unwarranted when no exceptional grounds existed, especially since the impugned order was passed after hearing both parties and the Chairman had statutory power to act under Section 25.
The court set aside the Calcutta High Court's judgment and dismissed the writ petition filed by Bandyopadhyay. But it gave him liberty to challenge the transfer order before the Delhi High Court — the court that actually had the power to hear it. The Supreme Court made no finding on whether the transfer order itself was correct or not. That question remains open for the Delhi High Court to decide.
Practical implications for tribunal litigants
This judgment has significant consequences for anyone litigating before tribunals across India. The decision clarifies that a challenge to a transfer order under Section 25 of the Administrative Tribunals Act must be filed in the High Court that has territorial jurisdiction over the tribunal bench that passed the transfer order, not the bench where the original application is pending. This principle applies regardless of how inconvenient it may be for the litigant. For example, a litigant whose case is pending before a tribunal bench in Chennai cannot challenge a transfer order passed by the Chairman in New Delhi before the Madras High Court; the challenge must be filed before the Delhi High Court. This rule streamlines the process for judicial review of transfer orders and prevents forum shopping, where a party might attempt to choose a High Court perceived to be more favourable. The Supreme Court's decision in Union of India v. Alapan Bandyopadhyay provides a clear and binding precedent on this point, eliminating any ambiguity that may have existed previously. Litigants must now carefully consider the seat of the tribunal bench that passed the impugned order when deciding where to file a writ petition. Failure to do so could result in the petition being dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, as happened in this case.
THE PLAY: When challenging a tribunal's transfer order, file your writ petition in the High Court that has territorial jurisdiction over the tribunal bench that passed the order — not the High Court where your original case was filed.
The case was moved from Kolkata to Delhi. The challenge was filed in Kolkata. The Supreme Court sent it back to Delhi — not because the transfer was right, but because only Delhi could decide.