Personnel of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) can approach the Delhi High Court in service matters even if the cause of action arises somewhere else as the Central Government’s offices and the CAPFs’ headquarters are located in the national capital, the Supreme Court has ruled.
“We hold that, in case any member of the CAPF, and that includes the BSF, is aggrieved by any administrative order of termination of his service issued by the competent authority, notwithstanding that the cause of action arose outside… still the Delhi High Court would have territorial jurisdiction in light of situs of office of the Union of India and the Director General (BSF),” a Bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma said.
“Where the question of pursuing a constitutional remedy is involved and invocation of writ jurisdiction is traceable to clause (1) of Article 226, the doctrine of forum non conveniens may rarely apply," the top court said.
Requiring a litigant to approach another court despite having chosen a forum convenient to the respondents could end up denying access to justice rather than advancing it.
The Bench allowed BSF constable Baksish Ahmad’s appeal against the Delhi High Court’s decision dismissing his petition challenging his dismissal from service on the ground of “forum non conveniens".
Setting aside the Delhi High Court’s order, the Bench restored Ahmad’s petition filed in the Delhi High Court for adjudication on merits. It asked the respondents (BSF and others) to file their replies in two months and gave Ahmad another one month to file his rejoinder.
Ahmad, a BSF constable enrolled in 2010, was dismissed from service in October 2022 after a Staff Court of Inquiry found that he had contracted a second marriage during the subsistence of his first marriage and without obtaining the requisite permission from the competent authority. His statutory petition against the dismissal was dismissed by the Inspector General, BSF Jammu.
Against these orders, he moved the Delhi High Court which refused to entertain his plea for want of territorial jurisdiction, saying the dismissal happened in West Bengal and his statutory petition was rejected in Jammu and Kashmir.
Acknowledging that Ahmad could have moved the Calcutta High Court, the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, or the Allahabad High Court on the basis of different parts of the cause of action, the top court held that Delhi was also a competent forum under Article 226(1) of the Constitution in view of the fact that Director General of the BSF sat in Delhi.
It noted that every dismissal order passed under the BSF Rules was required to be reported to the Director General.
