Unhappy forces cannot function happily, HC tells BSF

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the BSF to show compassion towards a constable seeking a stay on his transfer as his wife was pregnant and said "unhappy forces cannot have happy functioning".

"Post him to some other location. Help them," a bench of Justices Sanjeev Sachdeva and A K Chawla told the Border Security Force while hearing Constable Bhudev Singh's plea that he not be transferred from Delhi to Shillong till his wife gives birth, expected in November.

"Show some compassion," the bench said. "...If you (BSF) have an unhappy force, you cannot have happy functioning," it told the central government's standing counsel Sanjeev Narula, appearing for the BSF.

When Narula submitted that a representation made by the petitioner in this regard was under consideration, the court asked the authority to dispose it of within two weeks and posted the matter for hearing on July 12.

The plea, filed through counsel Saahila Lamba, contended that Bhudev Singh had filed a representation before the concerned department in February this year to not transfer him from Delhi till his wife delivered their baby, due in November.

Though his representation was yet to be decided, the BSF on June 10 ordered that he be transferred to the Meghalaya capital by June 25, the petition said.

Seeking deferment of his transfer by five months, Singh contended that for last one year his wife, a teacher by profession, was undergoing IVF treatment in Delhi for which he was posted here. And now that she had conceived, his transfer orders had come.