The Punjab and Haryana High Court has struck down the Haryana government’s blanket prohibition on foreign travel by state employees, ruling that the restriction was arbitrary and disproportionate to the administration’s stated objective of conserving fuel and public resources.
In an order issued on August 27, Justice Harpreet Singh Brar set aside the June 10 executive instructions to the extent that they enforced a total bar on overseas travel. The court directed competent authorities to promptly grant travel permission to a government nursing officer seeking to appear for a professional licensing examination in Australia.
Violation of Fundamental Freedoms
The court ruled that the freedom to travel abroad forms an integral facet of the right to life and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Justice Brar observed that such rights cannot be reduced to a mere administrative privilege or curtailed through broad executive orders that lack legislative backing.
Characterising the state policy as an excessive measure, the bench held that imposing a total ban across an entire category of public servants merely due to their employment status was manifestly arbitrary. The court noted that the government failed to establish any logical connection between restricting private international travel and addressing global fuel or resource pressures. It further stated that penalising employees seeking higher education impairs their constitutional right to professional advancement.
Petitioner Denied Leave for Professional Examination
The ruling came on a petition filed by a nursing officer employed at Pt Bhagwat Dayal Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences since February 2021. The petitioner had applied to appear for the Objective Structured Clinical Examination, conducted by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and National Boards, scheduled for September 29.
Although the employee had secured a no-objection certificate on January 15 and subsequently obtained an Australian visitor visa, institutional authorities refused to process her August 18 leave application. The refusal was based on the Haryana Human Resource Department’s June 10 circular, which barred all employees of the state government, boards, corporations, and public authorities from official or personal foreign travel until September 2026, with exemptions granted solely for medical treatment.
Representing the petitioner, advocate Brijender Kaushik argued that executive guidelines do not satisfy the requirement of a fair and just procedure established by law to restrict Article 21 rights. Counsel contended that the policy was unconstitutional, disproportionate, and enforced without lawful authority.
State Defence of Austerity Measures Rejected
Defending the policy, Additional Advocate General Akshit Pathania submitted that the restrictions were introduced as temporary austerity measures in the wider public interest. The state maintained that the geopolitical fallout from the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the crisis in West Asia had severely disrupted global supply chains, necessitating resource conservation and expenditure cuts.
The High Court rejected this justification, observing that the administration had mechanically enforced the prohibition without assessing individual circumstances, employee designations, job responsibilities, or the specific intent behind travel requests. The bench concluded that even if the government possesses the authority to regulate foreign visits, any such restriction must strictly comply with the constitutional standards of equality and personal liberty under Articles 14 and 21.
