V VENKATESH Vs. MANAGEMENT KARNATAKA SILK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD learned Counsel on both sides. Rule. By consent of the parties, matter taken up for hearing.

(2.) IT is seldom that the Court will interfere in a case relating to a transfer unless it is visibly demonstrated that the order is punitive or more importantly that the case involves malafides, vindictiveness or gross abuse of authority. The law takes note of the fact that for administrative reasons it may be necessary to post an employee at different work station. Undoubtedly such movement does result in a degree of dislocation and difficulty and it is therefore that certain well defined guidelines have emerged whereby it is essential that the transfer should be demonstrated to have been undertaken for an administrative exigency and in the public interest and conversely, that the order is not motivated nor can it be assailed on the grounds of malafides. The Courts, particularly in exercise of Writ jurisdiction were hitherto extremely slow in matters of interference with a transfer but experience in the recent past has indicated that the power of transfer is being grossly misused in a large number of instances resulting in rank injustice and it has therefore become imperative for the Courts to very carefully examine any case where a transfer is attacked on grounds of malafides and if there is a definite indication that the transfer constitutes a misuse of authority it will have to be struck down. Courts are conscious of the fact that the misuse of the power of transfer could have disastrous consequence on the career not only of the poor employee but more so on his immediate dependants. For instance, an untimely transfer could seriously ruin the children's education, it could disrupt a family or finish a marriage and it could have other attendant fallouts of forcing the employee to maintain two establishments which he can ill-afford and often times, to suffer serious personal and health complications. Under these circumstances therefore, it becomes incumbent on a Judicial Authority to arrest the damage at the earliest point of time when it has been complained of Equally important, is the need that where the transfer is perfectly justified, that it must not be interfered with.

(3.) ON behalf of the petitioner, his learned Counsel contended that the power to transfer does not exist in so far as the Standing Orders do not make provision for this. As far as this argument is concerned, I need to observe that it is not a specific requirement that there must be a definite provision indicating that the employee is liable to transfer. In this regard, the petitioner's learned Counsel relied on a Decision of this Court reported in ILR 1992(2) Karnataka 1211 1. Management of M/s Nippani Urban Co-operative Bank Ltd. v. Workmen wherein, while considering the case of a transfer, this Court intervened in the matter on the ground that at the point of time when the employee had joined, there were no branches in existence and therefore, in the absence of specific provision providing for transfer in the changed circumstances that it was not permissible. That Decision is distinguishable. The Corporation's Counsel Mr. Subba Rao has on the other hand drawn my attention to the Judgment in W.P. 15970/86 and 16017/87 2. Rame Gowda P. v. Karnataka Silk Industries Corporation and Anr., wherein this Court has upheld the practice of interunit transfers without there being any specific provision for them. Mr. Rao submitted that it is well settled law that transfer is an exigency of service and that therefore, no definite provision is required to be incorporated in Rules of Standing Orders conferring the power on the Management to transfer employee. Judicial Decisions have virtually settled the law on the point in so far as it is not so much the aspect where the power needs to be specifically set out but the manner in which that power is exercised which is the crucial aspect that needs determination. Whereas the power to transfer cannot be questioned in most cases such as the present one, the mariner in which the power is exercised would require serious scrutiny.