SURENDRA CHOUDHARY Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE transferred employees of the Revenue Department, who have been transferred within the District from one Block to the other, have questioned the legality and validity of that order of transfers dated 31st December, 2005, inter alia, contending that it is mala fide and that it is mass transfers. By virtue of the impugned order recorded by the Collector, Patna, the employees of the Revenue Department in the District of Patna, came to be transferred within the District. Out of 176 actual strength, only 150 employees are working, and out of which 137 revenue employees have been directed to be transferred inter se in departments within the District.

(2.) NEEDLESS to reiterate that the transfer is an incident of service and this is always open for the master of the management concerned to effect transfer for the larger public interest and for the administrative exigencies. The transfer of Class III & Class IV employees is permissible under the Service Conditions and Rules, about which there is no dispute. A large scale transfers, now, branded as mass transfers cannot be questioned, merely, on the ground that there is a greater number of transfers. Paramount consideration in the public employment has been the public interest and the administrative exigencies. Ordinarily, we do not enter into the merits of the matter in a Public Interest Litigation. But, in the present matter, we have gone into the merits because in this case the employees, who are under order of transfer, have not reported at the transferred place, which, obviously, would have an adverse impact on the administrative mechanism.

(3.) MASTER or the management has its own role to play. It or he has discretion to transfer the employees in the larger interest of the administration, as well as, in the public interest, as well as, administrative exigencies. Apart from the fact that there is no any substance in the allegation as made in the present petition, there is no even slight material, which would entitle the petitioner in the representative capacity as a General Secretary of the Union to question and stall the entire order of transfers. The Constitutional Writ Remey is provided to project, protect, preserve and conserve the rights and not to perpetrate them.