A clash between two Indian Forest Service officers of the Punjab cadre, because of the state government's unwise step, has reached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) which stayed the transfer of Jitendra Sharma.

Sharma was posted as Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) (head of forest force) at Department of Forest & Wildlife Preservation, Punjab. He was transferred as Managing Director, Punjab State Forest Development Corporation, on August 9 and Kuldip Kumar working as PCCF (Wildlife) was given his post.

Sharma challenged the transfer order on the ground that during Kuldip Kumar’s earlier tenure as PCCF, the latter was indicted by the National Green Tribunal, New Delhi, for rampant violation of Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.

Kumar had allegedly ordered felling of 24,777 trees under a project to widen the 800-km-long Bist-Doab-Canal (BDC) in 2016 when he was PCCF without the approval of the competent authority. The Conservator of Forest, Shivalik Circle, Hoshiarpur, had warned prior approval from the MoEF was required.

According to Sharma, for this purported offense, the NGT had directed that the entire case be investigated thoroughly by an officer not below the rank of Additional Chief Secretary to fix the responsibility upon officers responsible for the violation.

Therefore, Sharma's petition argued that Kumar's posting as head of the Forest Department would make him the custodian of the record, which will hamper a fair investigation as directed by the NGT.

In view of the records of the case, CAT Chandigarh held that the transfer order was in violation of rule 7 of the IFS (Cadre) Rules, 1966, as its case of transfer was not put up before the Civil Services Board as it was not even formulated and therefore stayed the order till August 26.

While passing the stay orders, the Tribunal referred to the case of TSR Subramanian (supra), wherein it was observed that repeated shuffling/transfer of officers was deleterious to good governance.