Senior ED officer moves CAT
Ms Badhe in her petition before CAT has alleged that she has been facing complete seclusion in her workplace in Kolkata ED office.
New Delhi: A senior officer attached to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) Kolkata zone, who has furnished legal opinion in some sensitive cases of national importance being monitored directly by the Supreme Court, has alleged that she has not been assigned any official work since December 2018.
The officer in question, Sonali Badhe, currently working as deputy legal advisor (DLA) in Kolkata zone of ED, has further alleged that despite there being a suitable vacancy in ED’s Mumbai office, she was transferred to Kolkata in May 2018 from Ahmedabad.
Apart from her claim of being suitable for the post available in Mumbai, the senior legal officer — who has been selected through UPSC and had secured first rank in her doctorate in cyber laws — had cited personal reasons like taking care of her ailing mother who resides alone in Maharashtra’s Akola, as another ground to be sent to Mumbai.
However, she has alleged that while her request for transfer to Mumbai was not considered, in the past one year, some of her colleagues have, “enjoyed suitable office locations as per their choices”.
In her plea before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), she has sought a stay on the operation of the order on the basis of which her colleagues were given transfers allegedly of their choice.
Ms Badhe in her petition before CAT has alleged that she has been facing complete seclusion in her workplace in Kolkata ED office, soon after she had furnished legal opinions in some sensitive cases in December 2018.
She has alleged that no legal work has been assigned to her since the past 14 months, and that she has made repeated requests to the department of revenue in the union ministry of finance under which ED falls, to save her self respect and dignity at workplace, where she alleges lack of equal treatment and biased behaviour.
In her petition before CAT bench of New Delhi, Ms Badhe has said that the transfer orders on whose basis her colleagues were transferred, are patently “illegal and arbitrary”. Also, she has said further in her petition that they are in total violation of the DOPT, “as the posting orders are required to be issued in accordance with the seniority and preference and also in violation of their own guidelines”.