SOMESH TIWARI Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner who is a Deputy Commissioner of Central Excise has called into question the legal validity of the order passed by the Central administrative Tribunal, Jabalpur passed in O. A. No. 1042/2005, dated 14-3-2006 dismissing his petition and has also challenged his transfer from bhopal to Shillong and, as modified later, to Ahmedabad in the present petition.

(2.) AT the very outset, it is necessary to state that although transfer of an employee is an incidence of service and when made on administrative grounds normally does not call for interference by the Courts of law, the present case involves certain unusual and peculiar aspects in an otherwise ostensibly simple transfer matter which has compelled us to examine the issues involved in detail and to adjudicate upon them.

(3.) THE brief facts which are necessary for adjudication of the petition are that the petitioner is a Deputy Commissioner of Central Excise belonging to indian Revenue Service and was posted at Bhopal Commissionerate in 2002; that he has suffered a drug reaction and is undergoing treatment at Bhopal; that in January, 2005 the petitioner was shifted and posted in the preventive branch at Bhopal; that the petitioner's representation requesting that he be kept at bhopal as he was undertaking treatment was accepted and the respondents continued him at Bhopal; that he was transferred from Bhopal to Shillong vide order dated 22-8-2005; that the petitioner had filed a petition before the Central administrative Tribunal, Jabalpur Bench, Jabalpur against his order of transfer dated 22-8-2005 which was disposed of vide order 27-9-2005 passed in O. A. No. 897/2005 with a direction to the respondents to consider his representation and pass a reasoned order thereon and till then not to disturb him from his present place of posting; that his representation was rejected vide order dated 19-10-2005 on the ground that on enquiry into anonymous complaints against the petitioner it was found that the petitioner was apparently giving an impression that he was working on "caste-biased ideology"; that the petitioner filed a second petition before the Tribunal against his initial transfer order dated 22-8-2005 as well as the order rejecting his representation dated 19-10-2005 which was registered as O. A. No. 1042/2005; that during the pendency of the second petition the petitioner's first order of transfer to Shillong was cancelled and modified and he was posted to Ahmedabad in place of Shillong vide order dated 22-12-2005.