The Manipur High Court recently ruled that a Central Government employee may receive additional Allowances like House Rent. The High court said if central government employees should be entitled to get Extra allowances if they keep their family in the previous station on their own or rented house after leaving the Government quarters due to transfer to the North East region.
The bench, led by Justice M.V. Muralidaran, clarified that the only condition is that such family members of the employee must be residing with the employee at the previous place of transfer prior to being sent to the Northeast region.
The statement was made while listening to a catena of petitions in which the petitioners who were working in CRPF at various levels and stationed in the North East contested the termination of HRAs granted to them.
After finishing their tenured appointments in New Delhi, the petitioners were sent to Manipur. When reporting to the new station, the petitioners asked the authority to authorize HRA as it was being provided at the previous station. This request was denied, with a response stating that no such order had been received from the Government of India to grant HRA to the personnel posted in the unit deployed in the NE region and kept their families at the previous station without connecting his notional headquarter, i.e., Group Centre.
According to the Office Memorandum dated 22.1.2019, HRA is due to CRPF personnel upon transfer to a non-family location, including the North Eastern Region, Sikkim, Andaman & Nicobar Island, Lakshadweep Island, J&K, and a left-wing extremist area. According to the counsel for one of the petitioners, there cannot be a distinction made regarding whether the headquarters are located in the NE region or not.
The bench further observed that drawing of two HRAs by a Central Government employee would be admissible even if the employee keeps their family in the previous station on their own or rented house after vacating the Government quarters due to transfer to NE region.
Relying on the various office memorandums issued on the subject by the Ministry of Home and Ministry of Defense, the court explained that the rationale behind the grant of double HRA to employees, who are posted to the NE region or at Andaman and Nicobar Islands is that on their posting to those difficult stations, they are not expected to take their families along with them.
“That is the reason why posting to these places is called difficult posting, as it is not normally feasible to keep the families along while working at such stations. In order to ensure that such employees join these difficult stations, the benefit of HRA is extended to their families as well, who are allowed to remain at the last station of posting”, the court stated.
In light of the above discourse, the court reversed the respondent authorities’ orders prohibiting the petitioners from receiving HRA and ordered its immediate release in their favor.
