The Gauhati High Court has refused to interfere with the repatriation of a customs officer from Imphal to his parent cadre in Mumbai, holding that a consequential repatriation order cannot be challenged once the underlying decision treating the officer’s posting as a “loan posting” has attained finality.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Michael Zothankhuma and Justice Anjan Moni Kalita dismissed the writ petition filed by Sri Roger Ramneimawi, who had sought suspension of the repatriation and relieving orders dated July 22, 2026.
The petitioner had requested that the two orders remain suspended until the Central Administrative Tribunal’s Guwahati Bench decided his pending application in OA No. 246 of 2026.
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Through the first order, the petitioner was repatriated to his parent formation, Mumbai Customs Zone-I. The second order relieved him from his CGST posting in Imphal.
The petitioner had challenged both orders before the CAT. Pending the Tribunal’s decision, he approached the High Court seeking interim protection against their implementation.
The High Court, however, observed that the repatriation and relieving orders were not independent administrative decisions. They had been issued pursuant to an earlier departmental communication dated May 25, 2022, under which the petitioner’s posting in Imphal was treated as a “loan posting.”
According to the court, it was on the strength of this 2022 communication that the authorities subsequently repatriated the petitioner to Mumbai Customs Zone-I.
The Bench noted that the petitioner, along with two other persons, had previously challenged the May 25, 2022 communication before the CAT’s Guwahati Bench in OA No. 040/00121/2022. The original application was dismissed by the Tribunal on May 30, 2022.
The relevant Tribunal proceedings were subsequently carried before the Gauhati High Court. The court recorded that the earlier writ petition was dismissed on July 27, 2026, after it found no infirmity in the order passed by the CAT.
In the present proceedings, the Division Bench held that the legal challenge to the foundational communication dated May 25, 2022 had already come to an end.
Consequently, the petitioner could not maintain a fresh challenge against the repatriation and relieving orders merely because they were issued at a later stage.
“When the challenge to the letter dated 25/05/2022 has ended, there cannot be any challenge to any consequential order made on the basis of the said letter,” the court observed.
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