Transfer order

Appointments & TransfersNews

President, after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, transfers Justice Mohammad Rafiq, Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court, as Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court and to direct him to assume charge of the office of the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court.

Ministry of Law and Justice

[Notification dt. 23-04-2020]

Appointments & TransfersNews

President, after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, is pleased to transfer Justice Subramonium Prasad, Additional Judge of the Madras High Court, as an Additional Judge of the Delhi High Court and to direct him to assume charge of his office in the Delhi High Court.

Ministry of Law and Justice

[Notification dt. 04-03-2020]

Appointments & TransfersNews

Transfer Order

President with the consultation of Chief Justice of India, transfers Justice Amit Rawal, Judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court as Judge of Kerala High Court.

He has been directed to assume the charge of the office on 13-11-2019.

Ministry of Law and Justice

[Notification dt. 30-10-2019]

Appointments & TransfersNews

Transfer Order of Justice Ujjal Bhuyan

President in consultation with the Chief Justice of India is pleased to transfer Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, Judge of Gauhati High Court, as a Judge of the Bombay High Court and to direct him to assume charge of his office in the Bombay High Court on or before 03-10-2019.

Ministry of Law and Justice

[Notification dt. 19-09-2019]

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Rajasthan High Court: Alok Sharma, J. allowed a civil writ petition filed by a person against his transfer order. As a result of which, another order was passed regarding its transfer, quashing the previous transfer order.

 In the instant case, the petitioner was transferred to the post of RTO Alwar and respondent 3 herein who was posted as RTO earlier, was transferred to the Transport Department. Since the petitioner was due to retire in just six months, he challenged his transfer order before the Rajasthan Civil Services Appellate Tribunal, Jaipur. The Tribunal quashed his transfer order. Consequently, respondent 3 was transferred back to his original post of RTO and the petitioner was directed to join Parivahan Bhavan, Jaipur. Aggrieved by the said order of the Department, the instant petition was filed.

At the outset, the Court observed that the order passed by Tribunal was a well considered and replete with cogent reasons. It remarked that a transfer is an incident of service and the discretion of an employer in transferring an employee is quite wide. Ordinarily, no interference is to be made with an order of transfer unless it violates a statutory rule or is malafide. But it was opined that the same is not an iron-clad opinion in law. The Court relied on the case of Manjula Pathak v. State of Rajasthan, (SB CWP No. 14577 of 2016), which was also considered by the Tribunal, and held that transfer of an employee, within a year of his imminent superannuation, deserved interference.

It was observed that an employee, who is to retire within one year, should not be transferred if there is no obvious cause, as such a transfer would cause avoidable disruption at the end of a government servant’s career and create difficulties in a post-retiral settlement.

The Court was of the view that it was for the State Government to satisfy the Tribunal as to the circumstances which made it manifest that transferring the petitioner was founded upon a careful evaluation of public interest and/or administrative exigencies and that the impugned transfer was not a casual and mechanical exercise of discretion. The State should also have satisfied the Tribunal that while passing the impugned transfer order, the fact of the respondent 3 superannuating in six months was consciously taken into consideration. Neither of the above was admittedly done.

In view of the above, it was held that the order passed by the Tribunal required no interference by this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. No manifest injustice can be said to have been caused to the petitioner by the impugned order of transfer. The consequential order passed by respondents had thus to be sustained.

The writ petition was dismissed for being bereft of merits.[Rani Jain v. Government of Rajasthan, 2019 SCC OnLine Raj 1615, decided on 13-05-2019]

Appointments & TransfersNews

Sushri Justice Ghandikota Sri Devi, Additional Judge of Allahabad High Court transferred as an Additional Judge of the Telangana High Court and directed to assume charge of her office in the Telangana High Court on or before 16-05-2019.

[Notification dt. 02-05-2019]

Ministry of Law and Justice

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Madhya Pradesh High Court: Petitioner had filed this petition before a Single Judge Bench comprising of Vandana Kasrekar, J., against the order of respondents where petitioner’s representation with regard to his transfer was rejected.

Facts of the case are that petitioner was working on the post of Patwari and was also the President of the District Unit of the “Patwari Association”. Petitioner was transferred in response of which he filed representation to cancel the transfer on the ground that his wife was seriously ill and he himself was suffering from 40 percent of physical disability. Since no action was taken, a writ petition was filed and respondents were directed to reply to representation made by petitioner thereafter the representation was rejected and his services were transferred. Again petitioner submitted representation against the above transfer of services where again the representation was not responded to and petitioner had to file a writ before this court whereby respondents were ordered to respond to representation of the petitioner. Respondents rejected his representation once more and aggrieved by the same petitioner had filed this instant petition.

Petitioner opposed the rejection of his representation on two grounds. First, that respondents should have taken a lenient approach by considering his disability and ill health of his wife. Second, that petitioner is immune from transfer as he was the Office Bearer of recognized Association. Court while responding to the first ground stated by petitioner, observed that humanitarian considerations for employees posting cannot outweigh administrative exigency in the posting. Court also observed that it cannot interfere unless the transfer order suffers from malafide exercise of powers. While referring to Sanjeet Hardaha v. Sachin Jain, W.A. No.50 of 2018, Ramesh Kumar Soni Vs. State of MP, W.P. 12231 of 2017 and Prashant Shrivastava v. State of M.P., W.A. No.912 of 2018 it was stated that petitioner failed to show any malafide or violation of statutory rules in passing the impugned order. Therefore, the writ petition was dismissed. [Jagendra Pipri v. State of M.P., 2018 SCC OnLine MP 499, dated 29-08-2018]