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2021 DIGILAW 215 (UTT)

Murlidhar v. Commissioner, Sugarcane And Sugar

2021-04-05

ALOK KUMAR VERMA, RAGHVENDRA SINGH CHAUHAN

body2021
JUDGMENT Raghvendra Singh Chauhan, C.J - Aggrieved by the denial of temporary injunction by the learned Single Judge, by order dated 12.03.2020, in Writ Petition (S/S) No. 376 of 2021, the appellant has approached this Court. 2. For the sake of convenience, the parties shall be referred to as arrayed in the writ petition. 3. Briefly, the facts of the case are that by order dated 26.02.2019, the petitioner was promoted from the post of Sugarcane Supervisor to the substantive post of Sugarcane Development Inspector in the pay-scale of Rs. 29200-92300 in Level-5. He was posted in District Udham Singh Nagar and was directed to give information of his joining in the office of respondent no.2. The respondent no. 2 was further directed to decide the place of posting at his level. By order dated 01.03.2019, the petitioner was relieved from Haridwar to join his new place of posting with the office of respondent no. 2. By the order of the very same date, the Assistant Sugarcane Commissioner, Haridwar directed the petitioner to ensure giving information of his joining to respondent no. 2. By order dated 06.03.2019 issued by respondent no. 2, the petitioner was posted as the Sugarcane Development Inspector at Bazpur. On 08.03.2019, the petitioner gave his joining in the office of the Senior Sugarcane Inspector, Bazpur. By order dated 10.09.2020, issued by respondent no. 1, the petitioner was posted as the Secretary Incharge Cooperative Sugarcane Development Society Ltd., Bazpur, Udham Singh Nagar. Thereafter, on 15.09.2020, the petitioner took-over the charge of the Secretary Incharge Cooperative Sugarcane Development Society Ltd., Bazpur, Udham Singh Nagar, from Mr. Dharamveer Singh. Subsequently, by order dated 02.10.2020 issued by respondent no.3, the petitioner was directed to hand-over the charge of the Secretary Incharge Co-operative Sugarcane Development Society Ltd., Bazpur, Udham Singh Nagar to Mr. Mahesh Chandra Yadav, Sugarcane Development Inspector. While serving at Bazpur, the petitioner and his wife came down with Covid-19. They quarantined themselves and gave home-isolation undertaking. By order dated 05.01.2021, the petitioner was transferred from the office of the Secretary Incharge, Co-operative Sugarcane Development Society Ltd., Bazpur to Zone Bazpur to discharge the duty of Sugarcane Development Inspector; in place of the petitioner, Mr. Gandhiram, the respondent no. 4, was directed to take the charge of Secretary Incharge Co-operative Sugarcane Development Society Ltd., Bazpur, District Udham Singh Nagar. Gandhiram, the respondent no. 4, was directed to take the charge of Secretary Incharge Co-operative Sugarcane Development Society Ltd., Bazpur, District Udham Singh Nagar. Aggrieved by the said order, the petitioner has approached this Court. 4. Mr. Tapan Singh, the learned counsel for the petitioner, has vehemently argued as under:- Firstly, since Gandhiram, the respondent no. 4, is junior to the petitioner, he could not be posted as the Secretary Incharge Co-operative Sugarcane Development Society Ltd., Bazpur, District Udham Singh Nagar. Therefore, the transfer of the petitioner from the office of the Secretary Incharge Cooperative Sugarcane Development Society Ltd., Bazpur, District Udham Singh Nagar to Zone Bazpur is patently illegal. Secondly, the impugned order is not a reasoned order, but is a cryptic one. Therefore, the said transfer order deserves to be set aside by this Court. 6. Heard Mr. Tapan Singh, the learned counsel for the petitioner, and perused the impugned order. 7. The writ petition is highly misplaced. For, a transfer is an incident of service. The employer has sufficient power to transfer any employee for administrative reasons. According to the impugned order, the petitioner's transfer from the office of the Secretary Incharge Co-operative Sugarcane Development Society Ltd., Bazpur, District Udham Singh Nagar to Zone Bazpur is on the basis of the administrative exigency. Therefore, the transfer order cannot be faulted. 8. Merely, because respondent no. 1 has transferred a person, who is junior to the petitioner, the transfer order does not become vitiated. Lastly, the petitioner has nowhere pleaded that the transfer order is a mala fide one. 9. In a catena of cases, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has opined that ordinarily, a transfer order should not be interfered with by the High Court, unless and until it is pleaded and proven that the transfer order has been passed without jurisdiction, or arbitrarily, or with mala fide motive. However, in the present case, the petitioner has failed to make out any of these three grounds. 10. Moreover, a transfer order is an administrative order which does not decide a dispute between two parties. Therefore, a transfer order is not required to be a reasoned order. Even otherwise, the transfer order is based on "administrative exigency". Hence, reason is provided. 11. For the reasons stated above, this Court does not find any merit in the present appeal. The appeal is, hereby, dismissed.