UMASANKAR RAY Vs. WEST BENGAL STATE ELECTRICITY BOAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It is no wonder that a mammoth organisation like the State Electricity Board with about forty thousand employees and as many as eight Trade unions busy all l, throughout to advance the interests of the i said employees, should have enough administrative problems for the top executives, the problem of generation and distribution of power apart, which, is rather a nagging one. To such multifarious problems, already sufficient to keep the Board members over-busy, a new one has been added, namely, the implementation of the policy of transfer of the employees, as the instant writ petition highlights.

(2.) Politics now permeating almost every sphere of public life, as one may possibly take judicial note of and the Trade Unions having different political hues, the petitioners, eighteen in number, who are all associated with one of the Unions operating in the State Electricity Board (Board' in short), namely, the West Bengal State Electricity Board, Sramik Karmacharri Union either as its' members or Office-bearers, have in the instant writ petition challenged their orders or transfer mainly on the ground that their transfers are not in public interest but are politically motivated, the object allegedly being to crush their Union at the instance of another Union which takes the hue of the political party now at the helm of power in the State of West Bengal

(3.) According to the petitioners, the authorities of the Board having followed in the past an arbitrary and discriminatory policy relating to transfer of the employees under the said Board, the Board was ultimately persuaded to frame a definite and appropriate policy relating to transfer of the employees and such policy was actually formulated by the Board under a circular, being Order No. 1073 dtd. 1/11/74 (Annexure 'A' to the writ petition).