In short. If you look after a child, spouse, parent or sibling with a benchmark disability, DoPT instructions say you may be kept out of routine and rotational transfers. Employees who are themselves disabled have similar protection, and seriously ill employees can usually ask for a transfer under their department's policy. This page explains how to use these rules when a request is ignored or a transfer order arrives anyway. When a relieving date is close, the representation needs an answer within days; if it is ignored or refused without reasons, the Central Administrative Tribunal can step in, sometimes quickly.
Is this your situation?
- Your child has a disability certificate of 40 percent or more and you have been listed in the annual rotational transfer.
- You care for a parent, spouse or sibling with a benchmark disability, and your request to stay at the station was not answered.
- You yourself have a disability and have been moved away from the city where you receive treatment.
- You or your spouse need regular treatment (dialysis, chemotherapy, cardiac follow-up) available only in a particular city, and your request transfer has been pending for months.
- The department rejected your request with a one-line letter saying 'not feasible in public interest'.
- You are told the exemption is only for disabled children, not for parents or spouses.
- Your relieving order has already been issued and the joining date is close.
Two different problems: being moved, and not being moved
Before anything else, be clear which of these you face. In the first, a transfer order has been passed, and you want to stay where your disabled child goes to a special school or where your mother is in treatment. In the second, you want to move, perhaps to a city with a better hospital or to where your family can share care, and the department is sitting on your request. The rules, the strength of your case and the speed with which you must act are different for each.
Resisting a transfer is the stronger position where the caregiver instructions apply. The DoPT order of 8 October 2018 speaks of exemption from routine or rotational transfer. If the order against you is a routine or rotational one and you meet the conditions, the department has to show something more than general public interest to move you.
Asking to be moved is harder. No rule gives an employee a right to a transfer of choice, even on medical grounds. Here the case is usually about fair consideration: a request that is decided, decided in time, decided with reasons, and decided the same way as similar requests from others.
The rules that protect caregivers and employees with disabilities
DoPT OM No. 42011/3/2014-Estt.(Res), 8 October 2018
This order replaced earlier instructions of 6 June 2014 and later additions. It says a government employee who is the main caregiver of a dependent daughter, son, parent, spouse, brother or sister with a specified disability, certified as a person with benchmark disability under the RPwD Act, may be exempted from the routine exercise of transfer or rotational transfer, subject to administrative constraints.
It lists the disabilities covered by reference to the Act's schedule: locomotor disability (including cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, dwarfism, cured leprosy and acid attack victims), blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing impairment, speech and language disability, intellectual disability including autism spectrum disorder and specific learning disability, mental illness, chronic neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, blood disorders such as haemophilia, thalassaemia and sickle cell disease, and multiple disabilities.
DoPT OM of 31 March 2014 (employees who are themselves disabled)
These guidelines on facilities for employees with disabilities say such employees may, as far as possible, be exempted from rotational transfer and given preference in posting near their native place or place of choice. This is the instruction to rely on where the disability is your own.
Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016
Section 2(r) defines a person with benchmark disability as one with not less than 40 percent of a specified disability, certified by the certifying authority. Section 2(y) defines reasonable accommodation, meaning necessary adjustments that do not impose a disproportionate burden. Section 20(5) allows the government to frame policies for posting and transfer of employees with disabilities. Courts have read the DoPT instructions as part of that reasonable accommodation duty, which is why they are not treated as a mere favour.
Departmental transfer policies (serious illness)
There is no single DoPT order giving a general right to a transfer for serious illness. Most departments, though, allow request transfers or retention on medical grounds for conditions such as cancer, kidney failure on dialysis, major heart disease or similar, for the employee, spouse or dependent children, usually on a certificate from a government hospital or a medical board. Read your own department's policy; it decides what counts and who certifies.
Who qualifies under the caregiver instructions, and what the file must show
| Question the department will ask | What satisfies it | Where people slip |
|---|---|---|
| Is the person a dependant covered by the OM? | Son, daughter, parent, spouse, brother or sister who depends on you | Parents-in-law are not named; argue reasonable accommodation, but expect resistance |
| Is the disability a specified one? | A disability listed in the RPwD Act schedule | Diabetes, hypertension and many chronic illnesses are not specified disabilities in themselves |
| Is it a benchmark disability? | Certificate of 40 percent or more from the competent certifying authority, ideally with a UDID card | Certificates below 40 percent, or from a private clinic, do not meet the OM |
| Is the certificate valid today? | Permanent certificate, or a temporary one still within its validity | Temporary certificates that expired before the transfer cycle |
| Are you the main caregiver? | Declaration supported by facts: who lives with the dependant, who takes them to therapy or school | Both parents in government service each claiming exemption without explaining roles |
| Is the transfer routine or rotational? | Annual general transfer list, tenure-based rotation, or a cadre rotation | Transfers on promotion, on disciplinary grounds or for closure of an office are argued differently |
What 'main caregiver' means when both parents work
The 2018 order protects the employee who is the main caregiver. When both parents are central employees, the department may say only one of them can claim it. That is a reasonable reading in many cases, and fighting it head-on is seldom wise. A better approach is to explain how care is actually divided. If the mother takes the child to therapy three mornings a week and the father handles nights and hospital stays, say so. If one parent works shifts, explain how the household runs.
Where a parent or sibling is the dependant, the question becomes who lives with them and who manages their care. An elder brother working in Chennai who sends money home is not the main caregiver of a sister with intellectual disability living with the younger brother in Patna. Keep the explanation factual and short, and support it with addresses, school or therapy records and the dependant's own documents.
Single parents, widowed employees and those whose spouse is not working should say so in the first line. It is the most persuasive fact they have, and departments do take it into account.
Administrative constraints: the only real answer a department has
The exemption is not absolute. The OM says it applies subject to administrative constraints, and in a small office with only one post of a particular kind, the department may genuinely need to move someone. But the burden is on the department to show the constraint, and it must do so in the order or in the record at the time, not in an affidavit filed months later.
A Delhi High Court decision of 3 September 2026, DRDO v. Dr. Deepti Bhardwaj (W.P.(C) 12454/2026), is a recent illustration. The High Court declined to interfere with a Tribunal order that had stopped the transfer of a DRDO officer caring for a child with a benchmark disability, until the expiry of the child's disability certificate. The transfer order had cited only public interest, and the Court did not allow the department to improve those reasons later through its affidavit. It described the DoPT instructions as a step towards reasonable accommodation under the Act, to be read generously. Read the full judgment before relying on it, and check whether anything has been said since.
The practical lesson is this: when a department rejects a caregiver's request, ask it in writing which administrative constraint applies and why no other officer can be moved instead. A department that cannot answer that has a weak position before the Tribunal.
Getting a decision out of the department
Put the papers in order first
Get the disability certificate, the UDID card if issued, proof of relationship and dependency, and records showing the ongoing treatment or schooling. If the certificate is temporary and near expiry, start the renewal now.
Apply before the transfer list is finalised
Most departments call for options and exemption requests before the annual general transfer. Apply in that window, in writing, citing the 8 October 2018 OM, and keep the acknowledgement.
If an order is issued anyway, represent at once
Within a day or two of the order, submit a representation to the competent authority through your controlling officer, attaching the papers. Ask for the order to be withdrawn or kept in abeyance for you, and ask that you not be relieved until it is decided.
Report the medical facts plainly
Say what treatment or support the dependant needs, where it is available, and what would happen if you were moved. One page of facts is worth more than five pages of emotion.
Follow up and fix a date in your mind
If the relieving date is near and nothing has been decided, you cannot wait six months. A Tribunal can hear an urgent case where the representation is pending and relieving is imminent. Speak to a lawyer the same week.
File an OA with an interim prayer if needed
The OA asks for the order to be quashed or the exemption to be applied, and the interim prayer asks that you not be relieved meanwhile. Our page on urgent interim relief before the Tribunal explains how stays are argued.
If you are asking to be moved rather than resisting a move, the steps are the same, but the timetable is gentler. Allow the department a reasonable time, send one reminder, and go to the Tribunal if there is no reasoned answer within six months.
Documents to keep ready
Medical and disability papers
- Disability certificate from the competent certifying authority showing the percentage and type
- UDID card or its enrolment acknowledgement
- Current treatment record: prescriptions, therapy schedule, dialysis or chemotherapy cards, hospital discharge summaries
- Certificate from a government hospital or medical board where your department's policy asks for one
- For a child, the special school or therapy centre's letter on enrolment and attendance
Relationship and dependency
- Birth certificate or other proof of relationship
- Proof that the dependant lives with you (ration card, Aadhaar address, CGHS card listing dependants)
- Your declaration as main caregiver, and your spouse's posting details if both are employed
Service papers
- The transfer order, relieving order and any movement order
- The departmental transfer policy for the year
- Your exemption request or request transfer application with acknowledgement
- Every representation, reminder and reply
- Transfer orders or lists showing others exempted or retained, if you have them
Request transfer on medical grounds: what you give up
A transfer at your own request is not free. In many cadres you go to the bottom of the seniority list at the new unit, you bear your own travel and transport costs, and you may lose a place in a promotion zone. Know these costs before you apply, and ask whether a transfer within the same unit or circle would serve the medical need without the seniority loss. Our guide on seniority after a request transfer explains how this works.
Where the employee has a disability and the move is to a place of treatment, the department should consider whether the RPwD Act's reasonable accommodation duty changes the usual consequences. This is not settled for every cadre, and it is worth raising in the representation rather than assuming the worst.
Medical request transfers also tend to be decided late. A postal employee in Gorakhpur whose wife needs dialysis three times a week in Lucknow cannot wait two transfer cycles. In such cases, the representation should ask for a temporary attachment or deputation to the city as an interim arrangement, which many departments can grant without disturbing seniority.
Which forum and which bench
Central government civil employees, including defence civilians, railway and postal staff, go to the Central Administrative Tribunal. The bench is ordinarily the one covering your place of posting, or the place where the cause of action arose in part, under Rule 6 of the CAT (Procedure) Rules, 1987. If you are being transferred from Delhi to Dehradun, the Principal Bench in New Delhi is the natural forum because the order operates on your Delhi posting. A Ghaziabad-based employee would ordinarily go to the Allahabad Bench, and one posted at Lucknow to the Lucknow Bench.
Employees of central public sector undertakings and nationalised banks are not under CAT. The Department of Public Enterprises has asked public sector undertakings to follow the disability transfer instructions, and disputes there go to the High Court. CAPF personnel have their own transfer policies and also go to the High Court. Our page on CAPF, PSU and bank service disputes sets out that route. State government employees go to the State Administrative Tribunal where one exists, or to the High Court.
Teachers of Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas have their own transfer guidelines, which give weight to medical and disability grounds through a points system. Disputes over those points also come to CAT. See our page on KVS and NVS teachers' cases.
How long it takes, and the costs involved
| Stage | Usual time | Costs |
|---|---|---|
| Exemption request in the transfer window | Decided with the annual list, often within 4 to 8 weeks | None |
| Representation after an order is passed | Should be decided before relieving; often is not | Postage only |
| Urgent OA with interim prayer | Can be listed within days at many benches when relieving is imminent | Tribunal fee is a small fixed amount (Rs 50 under Rule 7; verify the present fee and payment mode with the registry), notarisation and copying |
| Reply and rejoinder | Generally 1 to 4 months | Travel or video hearing costs |
| Final decision | Often 4 to 12 months after filing; some caregiver cases are heard faster | Our fee is discussed at the first meeting and agreed in writing for each stage |
| Complaint to the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities | A few months; the authority is expected to act on recommendations within three months | No fee |
Stays in caregiver cases
Caregiver cases are among the transfer matters in which the Tribunal is more willing to grant interim protection, because the harm is concrete and cannot be undone by later arrears. A child who loses a place at a special school or a therapy routine does not get it back when the case is decided. That said, the Tribunal will want to see that you meet the basic conditions on paper: a valid certificate of 40 percent or more, a covered relationship, and a routine or rotational transfer.
Timing matters. If you have already been relieved and have joined at the new station, a stay is harder to get, though not impossible. If you have neither joined nor obtained a stay, you risk an absence charge. Represent at once, and if the relieving date is days away, file with an interim prayer. Advocate B.K. Singh's advice to clients in this position is blunt: bring the certificate, the order and the representation on the same day you call, because the first listing is usually where the case is won or lost.
Mistakes that sink these requests
- An expired or temporary certificate. The protection lasts while the certificate is valid. Renew it before the transfer cycle, not after the order.
- A certificate below 40 percent. The OM applies to benchmark disability. A lower percentage may still support a general hardship request, but not the exemption.
- Waiting until after relieving. Once you have joined elsewhere, the department will argue the matter is over. Raise the exemption before the list is finalised or immediately after the order.
- Refusing to join and staying at home. Without a stay, this turns a caregiver case into an absence case. Get a decision or an interim order first.
- Asking for one station only. If you are seeking a move, giving three or four acceptable stations near treatment makes it easier for the department to say yes.
- Mixing grounds without order. Put the caregiver OM first, then spouse posting, then other hardship. A representation that lists eight grounds in no order is easy to reject with one line.
Another door: the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities
The RPwD Act sets up the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, who can take up complaints about deprivation of rights of persons with disabilities, including in employment. A complaint can be filed online. The Commissioner can hear the department and make recommendations, and the Act expects the authority to inform the Commissioner of the action taken within three months, giving reasons if it does not accept the recommendation.
This route is useful where the urgency is low and you want an independent push without litigation. It is slower and cannot stop a relieving order. Where the transfer is about to be enforced, the Tribunal is the right forum, and you can mention any pending complaint in your OA. Our guide on how the RPwD Act affects posting, promotion and retention covers the wider picture.
A made-up example: a son with autism and an annual transfer list
Here's a made-up example. Meenakshi, an Income Tax Officer in Nagpur, has a nine-year-old son with autism spectrum disorder, certified at 60 percent, attending a special school and occupational therapy in the city. Her husband works in a private firm with long travel. In the annual general transfer of 2026 she was posted to Raipur. She had filed an exemption request in the transfer window, which was not mentioned in the order.
She represented the next day, attaching the certificate, the school's letter and her earlier request, and asked that she not be relieved until it was decided. Ten days later, with the relieving order issued and no decision, she filed an OA with an interim prayer. The Tribunal directed that she not be relieved till the next date and asked the department to produce the file. The department later modified the order. Your case may not follow the same path; it depends on the papers and on whether the department can point to a real constraint.
A second made-up example: a request to move for dialysis
Here's another made-up example. Abdul, a Postal Assistant in Gorakhpur, applied in 2025 for a transfer to Lucknow because his wife needs dialysis three times a week at a government hospital there. The request sat for fourteen months. Two other request transfers to Lucknow were granted in that period on what looked like weaker grounds.
He sent a representation asking for a decision and, as an interim measure, a temporary attachment to a Lucknow post office. When six months passed without an answer, an OA was filed before the Allahabad Bench, which covers Gorakhpur. The Tribunal directed the circle to decide within six weeks with reasons, keeping in view the medical record and the two other transfers. He was posted to Lucknow in the next order. Not every case ends this way, and a department that gives proper reasons for refusal is entitled to do so.
Differences for officers, railway and postal staff, and retirees-to-be
Group A officers in all-India or organised services are often moved under cadre rotation or inter-cadre deputation rules. The caregiver OM still applies, but the decision may sit with the cadre controlling authority rather than the local office. For IAS, IPS and IFoS officers, inter-cadre transfer or deputation is a separate route under the cadre rules and DoPT policy; our page on inter-cadre and inter-zone transfer requests covers that.
Railway employees are governed by Railway Board instructions, which have adopted the exemption for caregivers. Inter-railway request transfers carry seniority loss, so the medical case for an intra-railway move is usually the first thing to try. Postal staff and GDS should check the Directorate's rotational transfer guidelines and the separate transfer provisions for GDS. Defence civilians follow Ministry of Defence orders that incorporate the DoPT instructions.
If you are within a year or two of retirement, departments often prefer to leave you where you are in any case, and many policies say so. Mention your date of superannuation in the first paragraph of your representation.
How we take up medical and caregiver transfer matters
We look at three things on the first call: the certificate, the order, and the date you are due to be relieved. Advocate B.K. Singh will tell you whether the caregiver OM squarely covers you, whether a representation alone is likely to work, and whether the Tribunal needs to be approached that week. If an OA is needed, we prepare it with the medical papers at the front and the department's lack of reasons at the centre. For a spouse also in service, we look at the spouse posting instructions alongside. For broader challenges to a transfer order, see our page on transfer orders against the policy.
If you care for a disabled family member or are seriously ill and the department has ignored your posting request, contact Advocate B.K. Singh for advice on your papers or for updates on the transfer rules.
Frequently asked questions
Can a central government employee with a disabled child refuse a transfer?
Not simply refuse. But a main caregiver of a dependant with a benchmark disability can ask to be exempted from routine and rotational transfers under the DoPT order of 8 October 2018. If the department transfers you anyway without showing a real administrative constraint, you can represent and then approach the Tribunal, ideally before you are relieved.
Does the caregiver exemption cover my disabled mother or brother?
Yes, the 2018 order names parents, spouse, brothers and sisters as well as sons and daughters, as long as they are dependent on you and have a certified benchmark disability. You must be the main caregiver, which you should explain with facts.
What percentage of disability is needed for transfer exemption?
The order applies to a benchmark disability, which means at least 40 percent of a specified disability, certified by the competent authority. A UDID card helps, and the certificate must be valid at the time of the transfer.
Is cancer treatment a ground for a transfer request?
Most departmental transfer policies allow request transfers or retention on medical grounds for serious illnesses such as cancer, usually on a certificate from a government hospital or medical board. The DoPT caregiver order is narrower and covers specified disabilities, so read your department's policy for illness-based requests.
Both my wife and I are central employees. Can both of us claim the exemption?
Usually only the main caregiver can. Explain how care is shared in your household, and also rely on the spouse posting instructions, which aim to keep working couples at the same station where possible.
Will I lose seniority if I get a transfer on medical grounds?
Often yes, if it is a request transfer to another unit; many cadres place you at the bottom of the seniority list there and you bear your own costs. A move within the same unit, or a temporary attachment, can avoid that, so ask for those options first.
Can CAT stop my relieving if my child's certificate is valid?
It can, in an appropriate case, by an interim order under Section 24. The Tribunal looks at whether the conditions of the caregiver order are met on paper and whether the department has given any real reason for moving you.
I work in a public sector bank. Do these DoPT orders help me?
Bank and PSU employees are not under CAT, and DoPT orders apply to them only to the extent the bank or undertaking has adopted them. Disputes go to the High Court, and the RPwD Act's reasonable accommodation duty applies to them as well.