New Delhi: Nearly two months after ThePrint reported the case of Sandarbh Gupta who petitioned seeking his father’s transfer to hometown, the Uttarakhand High Court has directed the Railways to consider the paraplegic child’s request within two weeks.
On Thursday, Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari passed an order saying that on account of Sandarbh’s physical disability, the child sought his father’s transfer from Lucknow to Dehradun, where he stays and goes to school.
“Petitioner has sought transfer of his father on the ground of his disability,” the court noted, adding that Sandarbh had also submitted a representation to the Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), Lucknow, through the Indian Railways’ human resource management system.
Suffering from multiple congenital disorders, the nine-year-old from Prem Nagar near Dehradun is paralysed below the waist. His grandfather, who had been his primary caregiver, died of cancer in March last year. As his father, a railways technician, is posted in Lucknow, his mother is the main caregiver.
Sandarbh’s application was then transferred by the Lucknow DRM to his Morabad counterpart so the latter could issue a no-objection certificate.
Though the case is pending consideration before the Moradabad DRM, it has been awaiting substantial decision since the past one month, the court said in its order.
“Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, the writ petition is disposed of with a direction to the DRM, Moradabad, to take a decision on the pending application filed by the petitioner within two weeks,” Justice Tiwari said.
Although it could have issued strictures to the Northern Railway for sitting on the representation since September, there was scope for the HC to do more in this case.
For instance, the Delhi High Court last month in the Shambhu Nath case, ruled that as long as a child or a dependent continues to suffer from disability, they would be entitled to the benefit of a caregiver in proximity.
The ruling came on a plea by assistant sub-inspector Shambhu Nath Rai of Border Security Force (BSF) who was posted at Silchar, Assam. His son, Satyendra, was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, and lived in Delhi.
Alternatively, the court could have summoned the DRM in person to explain the delay, given the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) had directed the railways to decide the representation in this case. It could have done the same to the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, issuing a strong recommendation in Sandarbh’s favour.
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What was the case?
In September 2025, Sandarbh filed a plea before the Uttarakhand HC, requesting his father, who had been posted in Lucknow since August 2020, be allowed to work near Dehradun given his medical condition.
Since Sandarbh is unable to move, sit or stand without assistance, he approached the court through his lawyer Rahul Bajaj. Taking note of the boy’s predicament, in the previous hearings, the court had agreed to seek a response from the railways but not before an intense scrutiny to ascertain the genuineness of the plea.
Sandarbh’s father had also petitioned six times to his employer. In his last petition, he mentioned that this was the fifth consecutive year that he was seeking a transfer to Dehradun on humanitarian grounds. The plea also mentioned that the boy’s mother suffers from a back problem.
He had also written to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2022.
However, no relief came despite multiple requests to the railways as well as to the CAT and the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD), the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the plea had added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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