GURUKULA VIDYALAYALA TELANGANA UDYOGULA SANGAM Vs. ANDHRA PRADESH RESIDENTAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS SOCIETY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Transfer of an employee, appointed to a particular cadre of transferable posts, is an incident of service and is made in administrative exigencies. No government servant or an employee of a public undertaking has a legal right for being posted at any particular place. Transfer, from one place to the other, is generally a condition of service and the employee has no choice in the matter. Transfer is necessary in public interest and efficiency in public administration. It is, normally, not to be interfered with by Courts/Tribunals except in rare cases where it has been made in a vindictive manner. Whenever a public servant is transferred he must comply with the order but if there be any genuine difficulty in proceeding on transfer it is open to him to make a representation to the competent authority for stay, modification or cancellation of the transfer order. If the order of transfer is not stayed, modified or cancelled the concerned employee must carry out the order of transfer. In the absence of any stay of the transfer older the employee has no justification to avoid or evade the transfer order merely on the ground of his having made a representation, or on the ground of his difficulty in moving from one place to the other. If he fails to proceed on transfer in. compliance with the transfer order, he would expose himself to disciplinary action under the relevant rules. (Gujarat Electricity Board v. Atmaram Sungomal Poshani; Public Services Tribunal Bar Association v. State of U.P).(1989) 2 SCC 602

(2.) The employer is entitled to decide, on a consideration of the necessities of administration, whether transfer of an employee should be made to a particular place. The employer is in the best position to judge as to how to distribute its employees at different places. Courts/Tribunals should be wary of interfering with such orders made by the employer in discharge of its managerial functions. If an order of transfer is made malafide or for some other ulterior purpose, Courts/ Tribunals may interfere and set aside such an order of transfer, as mala fide exercise of power is not considered an exercise of power in law. The finding of malafide should, however, be reached by Courts/Tribunals only if there is sufficient and proper evidence and such a finding should not be reached capriciously or on flimsy grounds. (Syndicate Bank Ltd. Vs. Workmen)AIR 1966 SC 1283 Questions, as to whether the transfers effected are in public interest or not, are normally not examined as this would essentially require factual adjudication and invariably depend upon the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case concerned. No government servant or employee of a public undertaking has any legal right to be posted forever at one particular place or to a place of his choice since transfer of a particular employee, appointed to the class or category of transferable posts, from one place to other is not only an incident, but a condition of service, necessary in public interest and efficiency in public administration. Unless an order of transfer is shown to be an outcome of malafide exercise or is in violation of statutory provisions prohibiting any such transfer, courts or the tribunals, normally, do not interfere with such orders as a matter of routine, as if they were appellate authorities substituting their own decision for that of the employer /management, as against such orders passed in the interest of administrative exigencies of the service concerned. (National Hydroelectric Power Corpn. Ltd. v. Shri Bhagwan(2001) 8 SCC 574 and State of U.P. v. Siya Ram)(2004) 7 SCC 405 Courts or tribunals are not appellate forums to decide on transfer of employees on administrative grounds. Wheels of administration should be allowed to run smoothly and Courts/ tribunals are not expected to interdict the working of the administrative system by transferring officers to places it considers proper. It is for the administration to take appropriate decisions and such decisions shall stand unless they are vitiated either by malice or extraneous considerations. (State of M.P. v,, S.S. Kourav)(1995) 3 SCC 270 Despite a plethora of judgments of the Supreme Court, orders of transfer and the guidelines issued in this regard still continue to be challenged before Courts/Tribunals and quite often we find interim orders being passed interdicting such orders of transfer. In the present batch of Writ Appeals the employer's repeated attempts to effect transfers, ever since 2003, have been frustrated and the guidelines framed each year, to ensure that transfers are effected in a rational and transparent manner through a process of counseling, have not been implemented in view of its continued challenge before this Court.

(3.) Now to the particulars of the Appeals before us. Writ Appeal No. 748 of 2006 is filed by the Gurukula Vidyalayala Telangana Udyogula Sangam aggrieved by the dismissal of W.P. No. 9856 of 2006 by order dated 22.06.2006. Writ Appeal No. 753 of 2006 is filed by Sri S. Subrahmanyam, and three others, aggrieved by the dismissal of W.P. No. 11291 of 2006 by order dated 22.06.200)3. Writ Appeal No. 860 of 2006 is filed by Smt. K. Sharada, and ten others, and Writ Appeal No. 915 of 2006 is filed by Sri V. Gnanakumari, aggrieved by the interlocutory orders passed in W.P.M.P.No. 29724 of 2005 dated 03.11.2005, and W.P.M.P. No. 33313 of 2005 dated 28.04.2006, in W.P. No. 23174 of 2005. The appellants in these two Appeals had earlier, along with others, impleaded themselves as respondents 4 to 46 in W.P.No.23174 of 2005.